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Zaphod42 posted:Or I could just write you off too, whatever. oh no tek however will you cope
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Jul 7, 2015 19:29
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StashAugustine posted:If you're playing games designed by people worse at game design than you perhaps you should play better games Or design games! I'd play.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:32
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StashAugustine posted:If you're playing games designed by people worse at game design than you perhaps you should play better games Fun isn't a boolean. You can have a game that's pretty fun but you come up with some version of it that's more fun to you. Maybe its not better objectively for everybody. Or maybe it is. Who cares either way? You guys are being kinda  Games can be about winning or about having fun. Sometimes winning is fun, but not always. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:33
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Poorly designed games aren't fun.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:33
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This is an argument the thread has been through many times, and it basically comes down to: games can be both fun and well-balanced and while someone could play a game that is only one (I'm playing and enjoying a Virgin Queen PBF despite a complete lack of any satisfactory method of random resolution in that game) ideally games should have both.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:36
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Zaphod42 posted:Fun isn't a boolean. You can have a game that's pretty fun but you come up with some version of it that's more fun to you. Maybe its not better objectively for everybody. Or maybe it is. Who cares either way? You guys are being kinda a) those aren't mutually exclusive in the slightest and if the game you're playing makes trying to win not fun you need to stop playing it because it's bad b) every game has a win condition, that's literally the definition of a game.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:36
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I think you are misunderstanding what I mean by public meet ups. I don't mean tournaments at all , which is why it is weird for me that you immediately went for the over-used "well I play for FUN not to be competitive". I don't know if you are willingly missing the part where I'm saying that if its you and your friends, you can house rule to your hearts content: it's not going to make me stay awake at night if you do or not. Can I honestly say that I thought you were being condescending to me? When you mentioned expansions like it was a big hole in what I was saying, it did make me wish to retaliate: I'm sorry for that and I'll try to avoid it. And yes, there are designers that are lovely: I tend to avoid playing their games because my time is limited and I don't have time to spend fixing their poo poo. There are loads of good games out there that don't require fixing and honestly I'd rather play them. I never mentioned playing games competitively so I still don't understand why you brought up chess. Playing games in a public venue doesn't mean playing them competitively.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:36
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Additionally on the subject of houserules, it's easy to underestimate how much of game design involves shitloads of playtesting; see Dominion vs Thunderstone
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Jul 7, 2015 19:40
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Zaphod, part of the misunderstanding is that I think you're interpreting what you call about whether a game is well made or not as saying that you're not entitled to the feelings of enjoyment you got from it. On one hand this is the thread and the fact that you can derive subjective enjoyment from a (possibly poorly made) game is just, well, that's just not very interesting. On the other hand it's usually interesting to hear someone talk about specifics of what exactly in a game did or didn't work for them, and why.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:54
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Tekopo posted:I think you are misunderstanding what I mean by public meet ups. I don't mean tournaments at all , which is why it is weird for me that you immediately went for the over-used "well I play for FUN not to be competitive". I don't know if you are willingly missing the part where I'm saying that if its you and your friends, you can house rule to your hearts content: it's not going to make me stay awake at night if you do or not. No I get you, I guess I went too far to the other side to say competitive tournaments. So you mean like meet-ups and game nights and just back-room game store playing with pubbies and stuff, right? Then yeah, obviously you want some standards and otherwise people will argue. But I mostly play with friends, and even playing with others if you can all agree on a variant, it can be super fun. It depends upon the game. The reason why I went to tournaments is because if you house rule something like cards against humanity, I don't think anybody will care that much. Its about the crazy combinations you come up with, not so much who is the grand CAH champion. But on the other hand something like chess, I would totally get bent out of shape if I showed up to play and somebody said they really wanted to play with fairy pieces. It changes the game and IMO unbalances it. So I see what you're saying, sure, It just seemed like you were arguing I was wrong to play it with fan-made expansions ever. If you're saying they're fine at home but not in public then okay, but you seemed pretty strongly arguing against it if that was all you intended. It may just come down to arguing semantics over what "unbalanced" or "badly designed" games mean. Tekopo posted:Can I honestly say that I thought you were being condescending to me? When you mentioned expansions like it was a big hole in what I was saying, it did make me wish to retaliate: I'm sorry for that and I'll try to avoid it. Yeah, and sorry if I did. But I didn't say anything to you like "well you clearly don't understand dick about games since you just said that"  Tekopo posted:And yes, there are designers that are lovely: I tend to avoid playing their games because my time is limited and I don't have time to spend fixing their poo poo. There are loads of good games out there that don't require fixing and honestly I'd rather play them. I know, why wouldn't you. I was only saying that in response to the "play games as they're published because they're perfect and you're dumb" argument. I'm not saying you'd be playing a game that's stupid, but again; that's its not binary. its not a boolean. You could play a game that's pretty good and then come up with something you like better. Or, like I already said, its not even objective. Its subjective. Maybe a good game designer comes up with a good game that plays one way designed for people who like X thing more than Y thing, but you like Y thing better, so you make a fan-expansion that focuses on Y thing. Its not that the designer was stupid, its just that you wanted to put a different spin on it. The existence of published expansions and saying they don't ruin the game or the game wasn't incomplete without them means that fan-expansions can do the same thing, so please don't just write them off like I'm doing something wrong. If a published expansion can do something than a fan-expansion can too, especially if its properly playtested and becomes popular. And there's even cases of fan made variants entering into the main published game, like in Magic (not a board game, sorry) Elder Dragon Highlander was a cool enough house-rule fan-variant that it became the official Commander gametype. Mister Sinewave posted:Zaphod, part of the misunderstanding is that I think you're interpreting what you call That's getting more to the heart of the matter, yeah. I guess if you want to say a house rule is badly made or unbalanced then I should just say "okay cool but its really fun". Its just to me... that isn't unbalanced. Or it isn't necessarily. It definitely could be, but then that probably wouldn't be fun? Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 19:55
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Yeah, I do mean meet-ups and going to pubs and stuff to play games. That's like 95% of my gaming and it I've seen people argue over including house rules in some of those meetups. I think the issue is that the house rule arguments get mixed up in the good/bad game argument. It usually comes down to people saying "the game is good if you change this and that and the other" and I just can't accept that argument. You can play good games and maybe change stuff and that's fine, but if you need to change the rules as written in order to play it at all that's not a good endorsement of the game.
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Jul 7, 2015 20:09
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Who is the publisher who fails the most at good rules / fun balance? Is it Plaid Hat?
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Jul 7, 2015 20:21
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StashAugustine posted:If you're playing games designed by people worse at game design than you perhaps you should play better games Vlaada is forever cursed to play his own games. 
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Jul 7, 2015 20:25
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Chill la Chill posted:Vlaada is forever cursed to play his own games.
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Jul 7, 2015 20:27
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Tekopo posted:Yeah, I do mean meet-ups and going to pubs and stuff to play games. That's like 95% of my gaming and it I've seen people argue over including house rules in some of those meetups. Yeah that sounds like what happened. I just wanted to say that board games are cool because you can do fan-expansions easy unlike video games. Then Fungah! made a crack about how games should just be good so you don't have to, missing the point completely. Most of his posts are pretty dickish though. I think you and I got caught up in his  attitude and ended up debating different points.I was pretty clear from the beginning that I just like making my own content, I like variety, and I like to play gamemaker. I never intended anything about taking bad games and fixing them with my special rules because I'm a smarter designer than anybody else. I'm definitely not.
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Jul 7, 2015 20:28
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Dre2Dee2 posted:Who is the publisher who fails the most at good rules / fun balance? Is it Plaid Hat? Now that you mention it, Plaid Hat made Summoner Wars which I thought was well received?
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Jul 7, 2015 20:38
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Azran posted:Now that you mention it, Plaid Hat made Summoner Wars which I thought was well received? Plaid Hat has only really started to suck when they started throwing Isaac Vega as their "main" designer. He did City of Remnants, Bioshock Infinite, Dead of Winter and the upcoming Ashes. Prior to that, Plaid Hat had Summoner Wars (good) and Mice and Mystics (boring, but great for younger/casual gamers). Also while I was looking to see what games he worked on, I found his BGG "bio." quote:Isaac Vega is a strong, proud, independent woman that don't need no man. He has an unhealthy addiction to Anime and has been black listed by Square-Enix due to his obsessive fascination with Final Fantasy. After being introduced to Plaid Hat Games, by his overly intrusive mother back in 2010, Colby has taken this budding designer under his wing and propelled Isaac into the wonderful world of board games. Although he still considers himself somewhat of a noob, Isaac just can't stop designing prototypes. With two games already well on their way to be released and a plethora of others in development, Isaac Vega is truly becoming a force to be reckoned with. I have no proof that he wrote it himself, but I want to believe.
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Jul 7, 2015 20:42
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I basically checked out with Summoner Wars when I learned that a cool thing to do was have your own guys kill each other. If your mechanics encourage that, they aren't very good mechanics for a war game.
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Jul 7, 2015 20:51
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Azran posted:Now that you mention it, Plaid Hat made Summoner Wars which I thought was well received? summoner wars was good aside from roll to hit (gently caress roll to hit) but their more recent stuff's been pretty bad and a lot more about fluff and theme than good mechanics
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Jul 7, 2015 20:54
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To be fair, Plaid hat also published Spector Ops, which is decent. I have played it quite a bit, and while it has gotten stale for me, I wouldn't label it as lovely as DoW. It still has roll to hit, but it isn't that bad overall. They need to publish more games from outside designers instead of riding the Isaac Vega 'same designer as DoW' train.
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Jul 7, 2015 21:18
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Yeah I'm pretty lukewarm to Summoner Wars and have been for a while, roll to hit just sucks real bad and killing your own units is a really weird mechanical thing in a war game. Nothing else they've done has impressed me either.
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Jul 7, 2015 21:23
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I played Magnum Sal last night and it was awesome. Why did no one tell me about this game before? I get to be a goddamned Polish salt miner. Though I feel like there isn't enough mine collapsing and black lung for it to be a great mining experience. The game plays pretty solidly, I think, though.
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Jul 7, 2015 21:24
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Fungah! posted:summoner wars was good aside from roll to hit (gently caress roll to hit) but their more recent stuff's been pretty bad and a lot more about fluff and theme than good mechanics I come from a wargaming context, where roll to hit is pretty much the standard. What's the best replacement for this mechanic you guys have seen? Because it's kinda hard for me to think of, say, Wrath of Ashardalon, without roll to hit. Card combat?
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Jul 7, 2015 21:26
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Azran posted:I come from a wargaming context, where roll to hit is pretty much the standard. What's the best replacement for this mechanic you guys have seen? Because it's kinda hard for me to think of, say, Wrath of Ashardalon, without roll to hit. Card combat? Best? Napoleon's Triumph or the like, block wargames with no randomness at all.
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Jul 7, 2015 21:33
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Countblanc posted:killing your own units is a really weird mechanical thing in a war game. Not big on Summoner Wars myself, but killing your own units for magical power makes perfect thematic sense in a game about wizard empires at war. "Hey bro! C'mere!" "Yo bro, what's up." "Bad times, bro. We don't have enough blood to sacrifice for the Fire Ritual." "No way, bro. Maybe we can scrape some out of the Charnel Pits? Those bros got the hook-up." "No can do, bro. We're totes cashed." "Lame bro. What are we gonna do?" "..." "Bro, why is your ritual knife all up in my guts?" "Bro."
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Jul 7, 2015 21:34
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Also, the 'kill your own guys' strategy is only dominant in the first 8 factions or so (out of 40). It sucks thematically in some cases, but it is much less common in the later, more interesting factions. Summoner wars has its flaws, but I would still rank it one of the top cheap rules-light 2player 'miniature' games. Also, you know what is worse than 'roll to hit'? loving 'roll to defend'. It is my biggest issue with Xwing. Nothing is more deflating than master maneuvering your ships for a great shot, firing off your missiles, and rolling great, only to have your opponent roll great too and nothing happens. At least with summoner wars, most dice have a 2/3 chance of hitting, with very little stopping it. The probability management is much less mathy if you don't obfuscate the process with defense dice.
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Jul 7, 2015 21:42
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Azran posted:I come from a wargaming context, where roll to hit is pretty much the standard. What's the best replacement for this mechanic you guys have seen? Because it's kinda hard for me to think of, say, Wrath of Ashardalon, without roll to hit. Card combat? Some games like Kemet use cards, and coming from an Avalon Hill perspective there's ways to use dice resolution that are less binary and more predictable than straight X-to-hit like odds tables.
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Jul 7, 2015 21:45
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Kemet is a good example - but I was mostly thinking of smaller stuff, like Claustrophobia for example. I guess I'm personally more wary of d20 or d6 systems where you only use one dice to roll, because of how swingy they can be. 2d6 seems nicer because you have a curve, but that's me.  Rusty Kettle posted:Also, the 'kill your own guys' strategy is only dominant in the first 8 factions or so (out of 40). It sucks thematically in some cases, but it is much less common in the later, more interesting factions. I know people who love the defense dice roll (which at least is simultaneous) if only because it makes the player feel like he/she is involved in the resolution and not just at the mercy of luck.
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Jul 7, 2015 21:49
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Claustrophobia and Mage Knight are rad because they take some of the puzzly euro mechanics of dice worker placement and deckbuilding and use them to make the action selection of more traditional thematic games like this much more interesting. It might not make perfect sense in a simulation manner why your characters can only conduct certain action each round but it leads to more interesting dynamics in terms of selecting your actions and figuring out how you are going to accomplish something. I wonder what other normally euro mechanics could become the core of an adventure game like this, beyond deck building and dice placement. Additionally, I'm actually surprised there aren't more examples of each edit: The simultaneous maneuver selection of X-wing is also pretty sweet; they could totally have made that game just a sequential initiative based table top miniatures war game or even something like "move all your guys in then I move mine"
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Jul 7, 2015 21:53
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Azran posted:I know people who love the defense dice roll (which at least is simultaneous) if only because it makes the player feel like he/she is involved in the resolution and not just at the mercy of luck. More dice makes the player more involved and reduces luck? Those people are crazy.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:00
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Rusty Kettle posted:Also, the 'kill your own guys' strategy is only dominant in the first 8 factions or so (out of 40). It sucks thematically in some cases, but it is much less common in the later, more interesting factions. I really hate roll-to-defend cause it complicates the calculations involved. Virgin Queen is real bad with this since combat is "both sides roll a number of dice equal to the number of troops plus other stuff, most hits wins" which means that it's difficult to come up with your odds of success off the top of your head.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:01
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fozzy fosbourne posted:edit: The simultaneous maneuver selection of X-wing is also pretty sweet; they could totally have made that game just a sequential initiative based table top miniatures war game or even something like "move all your guys in then I move mine" https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/237/wooden-ships-iron-men 
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Jul 7, 2015 22:02
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fozzy fosbourne posted:Claustrophobia and Mage Knight are rad because they take some of the puzzly euro mechanics of dice worker placement and deckbuilding and use them to make the action selection of more traditional thematic games like this much more interesting. It might not make perfect sense in a simulation manner why your characters can only conduct certain action each round but it leads to more interesting dynamics in terms of selecting your actions and figuring out how you are going to accomplish something. When you say Mage Knight, I played MK like 10 years ago when it was just a cheaper alternative to Warhammer that came pre-painted and didn't have big rulebooks to buy. But towards the end they added some kinda dungeon mode with little treasure chests and stuff... I don't remember what they called it. What is modern MK, is it still just wargaming with miniatures ala WHFB or is there more going on? Well, here, let me just google.  Yeah I don't recognize any of this whatsoever. Hex tiles? Terrain cards? Huh.Do the old figures still work? I have tons of them from the first and second sets.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:04
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Zaphod42 posted:When you say Mage Knight, I played MK like 10 years ago when it was just a cheaper alternative to Warhammer that came pre-painted and didn't have big rulebooks to buy. But towards the end they added some kinda dungeon mode with little treasure chests and stuff... I don't remember what they called it. We're talking about Mage Knight: The Board Game. It's deckbuilding meets adventure game.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:08
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Zaphod42 posted:When you say Mage Knight, I played MK like 10 years ago when it was just a cheaper alternative to Warhammer that came pre-painted and didn't have big rulebooks to buy. But towards the end they added some kinda dungeon mode with little treasure chests and stuff... I don't remember what they called it. Board game Mage Knight has absolutely nothing to do with HeroClix Mage Knight, they are separate games. Board game Mage Knight is much better.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:10
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Zaphod42 posted:When you say Mage Knight, I played MK like 10 years ago when it was just a cheaper alternative to Warhammer that came pre-painted and didn't have big rulebooks to buy. But towards the end they added some kinda dungeon mode with little treasure chests and stuff... I don't remember what they called it. I think the old MK figures are technically compatible with the new Resurrection or whatever it is set, but it has nothing to do with the board game.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:11
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Rutibex posted:Board game Mage Knight has absolutely nothing to do with HeroClix Mage Knight, they are separate games. That's what I figured, thanks. Is it even the same IP? The logo looks very similar, and yet slightly different. Probably just a modern revision? Echophonic posted:I think the old MK figures are technically compatible with the new Resurrection or whatever it is set, but it has nothing to do with the board game. Ah I guess Resurrection is the latest set of the MK miniatures while Mage Knight the board game is just its own thing entirely? But same IP? They really should have called the board game Mage Knight: Showdown or something to differentiate them 
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Jul 7, 2015 22:23
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Zaphod42 posted:Is it even the same IP? The logo looks very similar, and yet slightly different. Probably just a modern revision? Yeah it's the same IP, so you're good if the Mage Knight universe is your thing, I guess. The game itself is pretty generic fantasy, I couldn't tell you what is distinctively "Mage Knight" about it beyond the flavor text in the rules book.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:41
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The only thing I know about Mage Knight outside of the board game is that there was a character who was a vampire gunslinger (Jesse Blacklock?) and I hope someday they put him in expansion.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:44
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Dre2Dee2 posted:One thing I do hate now that we're talking about all this is "buffet" expansions, and it kind of bugs the poo poo out of me. Fantasy Flight is a little guilty with these as I've seen them do this a couple times. What I mean is you buy an expansion, it has a whole bunch of new stuff/mechanics to try out, but most or all of it is optional rules. The Blood Bowl card game did this and it was kind of annoying. There are new magic footballs that you can try out... if you want! We have new fields you can try... if you want! We have new crystal balls that can affect rewards... if you want! On the other hand, Tuscany is one of the most buffet expansions out there - you can change practically everything up to and including the board - and is also one of the best.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:46
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