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I think the dice are fine. No one I play with will cheat the dice. Even if they wanted to, it would be pretty hard since we play on a loud table and the screens are very small. Plus everyone is focused on that player when they're rolling their dice and handling the result. If cheating with the dice was a problem, then Roll for the Galaxy has the same problem, no? Every crisis is not a skill check. There are several that are choices. You do remove some of those depending on the player count, like the loyalty check isn't used with low player counts. I would say the commander is exactly like the admiral. It's the exact same role. Instead of locations they get tasks and choose between them. Instead of nukes, they get the commander die. As for that die, it's just an extra slot that can only be used for the die. So the commander has a 5 dice limit, but one of them has to be the commander die. Really they should have colored one of the extra dice slot tokens blue and used it for the commander die. I might get a marker and do it myself. Either way, we've enjoyed it so far. Main thing I like about it is the length. I mean, I love BSG. But it takes 3-4 hours and is really picky about player count, so it's hard to get anyone to play it. Dark Moon takes 45 minutes to an hour. It also works pretty well with 4-6, haven't tried 3 or 7. I like that it has different crisis cards to deal with having more or less infected vs humans instead of weird special rules. Plus I don't have to explain all of the various skill cards. Dice is simple, it's either negative or positive. First time we played BSG, I sat out and moderated since we had 7 and just had the base game at the time. I think my group liked it the most then, since they could just ask me if they had questions or needed to know how some of their cards (which they couldn't really show to the other players) worked. The rest of the games we always have someone that gets confused and they end up showing me their cards to ask how something works. Which is usually fine since I'm always human...except the last game when I was finally a Cylon. I was honestly helping the new guy out and not screwing him over, but after I revealed I guess he thought otherwise and just tanked the game. This was 2 hours in, so yeah, loving sucked. Haven't been able to get it to the table since. So Dark Moon works for me.
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Sep 14, 2015 04:04
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The same people made the same objection to Roll for the Galaxy, you're correct.
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Sep 14, 2015 04:08
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Board games are a cycle. Let's go back to talking about its just fun. Meow. My rear end in a top hat story is I was playing Resistance with someone who I only know by 'Blood Feud' these days, and drew some plot card that had me show him my character card, I was innocent, he was innocent, but he said I was a spy anyway because???? He poo poo the game up for other reasons too and that's why I don't play games with blood feud anymore. AMooseDoesStuff fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 04:16
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Broken Loose posted:Dark Moon Yeah, these are a lot of the issues that I had with the game that have been magnified since starting the PbP. The infected do get some cool options but they can only really be utilized when already in the lead, which is drat near impossible to do without being outed prematurely. The designers managed to make a game that technically sits between Avalon and BSG, but misses what was great about either- specifically the control of player agency in Avalon and the different but still interacting systems in BSG. I will say that I've enjoyed the game while playing the physical version, but it's more due to the excitement of a new game and the "It's Just Fun" factor of playing with friends. Why can't we be in a world where BSG 2.0 already exists?
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Sep 14, 2015 04:20
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Players doing dumb vendetta or kneejerk dogpile hijinx have harmed far more games for me than possible hidden cheating has. Or quarterbacking, for that matter.
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Sep 14, 2015 04:31
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Mister Sinewave posted:Players doing dumb vendetta or kneejerk dogpile hijinx have harmed far more games for me than possible hidden cheating has. Or quarterbacking, for that matter. Ironically the one sort of game I've personally noticed tends to develop "vendettas" the most are hidden role/traitor games like Mafia/Werewolf or Avalon. "Oh don't trust Bob, he's always scum/a werewolf/one of Mordred's crew etc."
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Sep 14, 2015 04:42
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For the record my objection to Roll For the Galaxy was that it was significantly underwhelming compared to playing Race, not that it offered opportunities to cheat. Also the way the starting tableau is handled is purestrain bullshit that feels solely designed to sell an expansion (not that the base game of Race is any better in that regard).
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Sep 14, 2015 06:11
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The problem is that you have not discovered that games without politics, or only two player highly competitive games, are the answer. As long as you shackle yourself to games with political angles, you will always be chased by the demon of vendettas. Set yourself free from inferior game design and realize nirvana.
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Sep 14, 2015 06:12
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Yeah, play nothing but push your luck games. Hail Satan.
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Sep 14, 2015 06:29
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Push your luck is really bad though, it's like 11 credits until it's better than stimhack Wait what thread is this
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Sep 14, 2015 06:33
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OneDeadman posted:Though really, the secret best part about spyfall is forgetting to actually add the Spy card to pool and spending the entire game not trusting anything. Close; the actual best part of Spyfall is having a 31st bag in the box with 8 Spy cards (and no location at all, to clarify; everyone is a spy) that randomly comes up when playing, and spending the entire game with everyone trusting everything said and having no loving clue what location it could all possibly point to.  (Seriously, it's goddamn funny when it comes up) Merauder fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 06:47
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Kai Tave posted:And yes, before someone says anything I know that there's a difference between "being an obnoxious, whiny, argumentative dickhead" and "cheating at games," I'm just saying I find the idea that a game that doesn't lock down all possible avenues of cheating is going to inherently promote cheating even among otherwise well-behaved people is kind of bizarre. I'm thinking about the people at game night that I've sort of semi-cultivated into a core "I can play Kemet or Argent with these folks" crew and if any of them started cheating because they had a dice screen or something I would be genuinely surprised, like what the gently caress. It's this: Impermanent posted:Locks are there to keep honest men honest. It's not necessarily that every man has his price, per se, more that games are already competitive environments that do not also need to be trust exercises outside of the advertised trust exercises a game may have. The temptation exists, it doesn't have to exist, and there's no reason to defend its existence outside of subscribing to the just world fallacy. Some people take turns without signaling. Some people drive 5 mph over the speed limit. Some people might slip through an enemy radar in Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space. The more important issue at hand, which is incredibly relevant here, is that a hole in the rules such to the point where the rulebook itself has to tell the players not to cheat is bad. Dark Moon has lovely rules in general. The first edition of Love Letter had a card that killed you instantly if you drew it at the wrong time, and it was lovely. It was lovely that it encouraged players to cheat about whether or not they just drew it, and it was lovely that somebody could be eliminated randomly by the deck. Panic Station has no way to enforce whether or not a player successfully traded a gas canister for an infection card, which is lovely and allows cheating, but just like Dark Moon that piece of poo poo is a poo poo cherry on the poo poo cream on the poo poo cake that is the entire 2-foot-wide cylindrical turd. When a game's rules are so bad that the designer has to step in and kindly ask the players to pretend the rules aren't as bad as they are, it's disingenuous to claim that the players are the problem.
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Sep 14, 2015 06:48
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Regarding Spyfall, nothing justifies the behavior of whiny pissbabies, what to do with the master list of locations is one of the jankier parts of Spyfall. Leaving it in a conspicuous place on the table helps, but each player having their own list of locations would be even better. So, to make the game a bit smoother, I made some key cards and got my friend who has access to a laminating machine to make a set of eight. I stuck a public copy in my Google drive, so grab it if you're into Spyfall - it makes the game a little more friendly to newbies. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2E6FyHqlwM8bV8xM1BqWmFTNmhNb2JnajJVNnQwNnVkMTRN/view?usp=sharing
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Sep 14, 2015 06:50
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Merauder posted:Close; the actual best part of Spyfall is having a 31st bag in the box with 8 Spy cards (and no location at all, to clarify; everyone is a spy) that randomly comes up when playing, and spending the entire game with everyone trusting everything said and having no loving clue what location it could all possibly point to. Oh my god. Also there's no reason you cant use YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT to guess a place.
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Sep 14, 2015 06:52
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EndOfTheWorld posted:Regarding Spyfall, nothing justifies the behavior of whiny pissbabies, what to do with the master list of locations is one of the jankier parts of Spyfall. Leaving it in a conspicuous place on the table helps, but each player having their own list of locations would be even better. Maybe I'm mistaken (again, ten minutes of actual playtime here), but doesn't Spyfall give a spy who's decided they're going for it a grace period to review the list of locations after they've declared? I agree that having some handouts for every player would have been a good inclusion, but unless I'm mistaken the game doesn't demand that spy players know exactly which one of 30 specific locations they're at before they can feel confident declaring.
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Sep 14, 2015 06:54
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I totally understand playing with people who can be grumpy during games. One of my best friends can be very difficult to board game with because he holds grudges easily. Because I accept that certain kinds of games make him difficult to play with, and because I nonetheless treasure the time we have together, including the time we have playing games, I seek to find games that limit this negative facet of his behavior. We are all possible bad game players, given the right circumstances. Finding the games that make good experiences possible is what makes that elusive quality known as fun possible. Cheating is just one part of that behavior. Social interaction is built on finding ways to help us show each other our best sides. A good example of this is Codenames. Vlaada's rule about "only the card you touch is the one your team actually chooses." Is pure gold. It prevents the problem of people arguing about whether or not they choose a specific card, and lets the physical act of touch act as the ultimate arbiter of what card us chosen. In this way, the rule prevents bad feelings about what card each team MEANT to choose. Even the terse but ultimately shaming hints of "just pick something and tell me you guys" is avoided. The optional timer rule can also be used in a non shaming way if exercised with discretion. Sadly, it can also be used to make people feel bad about how long they take . AP is a pernicious problem. Impermanent fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 07:34
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Echophonic posted:Yeah, play nothing but push your luck games. Hail Satan. You joke, but yahtzee and similar games are remarkably pro social. Success never comes at anyone else's expense, and the sheer improbability of rolling a super high scoring number is celebrated through making it a catch phrase. They are not good games in the modern sense, but games like them have been common in pubs and such for hundreds of years because they generate very little ill will. You may feel lovely because the game unfairly gave victory away, or that someone unfairly got it through luck, but it is unlikely that you will hold it against them.
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Sep 14, 2015 07:55
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Broken Loose posted:Dark Moon I agree with your dissection of the game, but I would choose this over BSG for all but my ideal group (that have all played BSG and know the game well). I don't class it anywhere near the same as "party" style traitor games, but as a medium weight game. BSG is the best Dark Moon is good but flawed DoW is so hit or miss that I'd choose Dark Moon every time over it. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 08:02
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Spyfall really is kind of dumb though and "the best part is when you totally break the game" is damning with faint praise.
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Sep 14, 2015 08:04
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Spyfall is fantastic but completely dependent on the players to create the game and get into it. It can fall completely flat or be a huge hit that people don't want to stop playing. For my non-gaming friends, they instantly loved Spyfall and enjoyed Codenames a lot less (but still liked it enough to play 4 rounds). I'm liking Codenames more and more every time I play it, but Spyfall has been a huge unexpected hit every time I've played it. It also works much better if every player has a location list, both for the Spy to deduce and for players to be creative with questions.
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Sep 14, 2015 08:08
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Spyfall seems like it's a game that leans heavily on peoples' ability to be witty, glib, and/or clever at a moment's notice and so it's easy to see how it could fall flat with a group that feels unduly pressured or (less charitably) isn't that creative. I don't mean this in a "if you don't like Spyfall you're a moron" way, just that something like Codenames provides more structure for people (pick a clue word and a number, follow these guidelines, make it relate to those words you want your team to choose) while Spyfall seems more like something that appeals to people into improv.
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Sep 14, 2015 08:16
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Yeah, Spyfall wouldn't work with a group of strangers or shy people at all, whereas Codenames definitely could. Codenames relies on creativity and cleverness as well but in completely different ways. Codenames also is a group puzzle to talk and figure out the clues, you know who is on your team and you're working together directly, which is a lot less stressful than the Spy role.
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Sep 14, 2015 08:22
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Bottom Liner posted:Yeah, Spyfall wouldn't work with a group of strangers or shy people at all, whereas Codenames definitely could. Codenames relies on creativity and cleverness as well but in completely different ways. Codenames also is a group puzzle to talk and figure out the clues, you know who is on your team and you're working together directly, which is a lot less stressful than the Spy role. I haven't played either, but it sounds like Codenames is based on one person having access to hidden information among a freely available set and winning if he can create a puzzle with an answer that identifies it whereas Spyfall is based on one person not having access to hidden information among a set that only he does not have free access to and losing if he cannot create a puzzle with an answer everyone else knows. There is no possible way that Spyfall can be a better game than Codenames, even if all other things are equal.
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Sep 14, 2015 08:31
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You have the mechanics right, but it's not black and white as to which game is better. I would say most groups will like Codenames more, but some groups will really click with Spyfall and love it. It has great potential because it's such an open concept, but it demands more of the group to be a successful game. It's much more a social exercise than most party games, but that is where its potential lies. It's the kind of game I know exactly which friends I would play it with, the same way you know you can't play something heavy like Mage Knight or Terra Mystica with certain people no matter how great it is. Codenames is pretty inclusive of all player types, which is what makes it fantastic. I'm happy to have and play both, and they're both the type of game that just gets better and better with every play.
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Sep 14, 2015 09:01
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Was thinking about picking up Letters from Whitechapel for someone who is a superfan of deduction games and would find the theme appealing as well, but came across this in the thread a little while ago:Tekopo posted:Letters of Whitechapel was kind of annoying due to how easily it can be broken, but I still sort of like the game. Can anyone shed some light on this as nobody commented at the time. If it helps, it's likely my friend will be playing it predominantly as a 2p game with only very occasional bigger games.
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Sep 14, 2015 11:33
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Alright, this is what happened in my last game of Letters of Whitechapel. This isn't even something that I did deliberately, it was just a strategy that I only realised at the right end of the game. This is the map of the game: My hideout was in 38. In the 3rd night, I killed the wretched in 3. The policeman near 30 couldn't move close enough to get me in the first go. My first move was to coach to 17, next move I went to my hideout in 38. Nothing the cops could do about it. Last night kill was on 21, I coached to 18 as my first move, moved to 38 on my second move, the policemen weren't in position to stop me (they had placed policemen on the closest two police squares, but there was no way to block me). The game had been interesting until then. I mean, sure, I could have picked another spot further away, but why would I if my intention was to win? So yeah, I have real issues with the game balance.
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Sep 14, 2015 11:47
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Misread that a bit initially - Is this something that applies to a bunch of different locations in the game? And I haven't played it, but if this game was repeatedly played between a couple would this strategy always work or could the police player counter it?
Nique fucked around with this message at 11:55 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 11:50
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Tekopo posted:Alright, this is what happened in my last game of Letters of Whitechapel. This isn't even something that I did deliberately, it was just a strategy that I only realised at the right end of the game. This is the map of the game: How does the game work? Why can't policemen in your path do anything?
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Sep 14, 2015 11:53
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A bit of column A, a bit of column B. There isn't really any setup variance in Letters of Whitechapel: the only thing that really changes in the game is Jack's hideout. At the end of each night, Jack needs to get to his hideout and he does so by moving from one number to another. He has two special actions, coach being one of them. Coach allows you to move two numbers instead of just one, allows you to move through cops (IIRC), but you can't use them as a final move. It is power-gaming to an extent, but can sometime self-balance to an extent. If I always pick 38, as an example, and play with the same opponent several times, he's gonna just surround that hideout location every time. But then Jack just picks another location that allows him to do quick victories (there are several others) and there isn't a way to cover all of them as the police. I like the game but there are some real ways to break the game over your knee and I just don't think there is enough there to recommend it.
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Sep 14, 2015 11:59
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The Supreme Court posted:How does the game work? Why can't policemen in your path do anything?
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Sep 14, 2015 12:03
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My big game purchase should come soon, and I plan on Viceroy being the first one I want to test. I see some people calling 2 of the law cards (barter policy and referendum) unbalanced and suggest removing them. Should I do this, at least for the first few games?
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Sep 14, 2015 12:10
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Also as a different point, power-gaming isn't something that should be worth considering in terms of board games. If your game allows 'power-gaming' that breaks the game and following optimum strategies means breaking the game, then you just don't have a very well designed game.
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Sep 14, 2015 12:27
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Tekopo posted:Also as a different point, power-gaming isn't something that should be worth considering in terms of board games. If your game allows 'power-gaming' that breaks the game and following optimum strategies means breaking the game, then you just don't have a very well designed game. Agreed, realised this after I posted so edited into what I was actually trying to ascertain but I guess you were already typing up a response. Thanks for explaining though!
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Sep 14, 2015 12:35
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Tekopo posted:Also as a different point, power-gaming isn't something that should be worth considering in terms of board games. If your game allows 'power-gaming' that breaks the game and following optimum strategies means breaking the game, then you just don't have a very well designed game. It should come as no surprise that I (and a few other regulars here) come from a fighting game background, where if a game doesn't hold up under rigorous deconstruction and stress, then it isn't worth playing. No other genre of gaming sports transparency of mechanics so clearly, and no other genre requires nearly as much playtesting. I'd rather play a game that's been playtested 10,000 times but only has 1 setup than a game that has 10,000 setups and was playtested only once. Especially because being able to hold a group of boardgame testers' (who are almost always unpaid volunteers) attention spans for that many games is a possible sign of quality by itself.
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Sep 14, 2015 12:48
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Tekopo posted:Alright, this is what happened in my last game of Letters of Whitechapel. This isn't even something that I did deliberately, it was just a strategy that I only realised at the right end of the game. This is the map of the game: What exactly were the police doing on the second and third days, when they knew which quarter of the city your hideout was in and that it was exactly three spaces away from 3? Abberline should have had a good chance of calling you out for an instant win even if the cops couldn't get in position to block you. E: sorry, thought you killed on 3 on the first night because you didn't state where the second kill was.
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Sep 14, 2015 12:57
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Jedit posted:I haven't played either, but it sounds like Codenames is based on one person having access to hidden information among a freely available set and winning if he can create a puzzle with an answer that identifies it whereas Spyfall is based on one person not having access to hidden information among a set that only he does not have free access to and losing if he cannot create a puzzle with an answer everyone else knows. There is no possible way that Spyfall can be a better game than Codenames, even if all other things are equal. Technically that's not entirely true. In Spyfall both the location and the identity of the spy is hidden information. It's true that most of the pressure is on the spy to create his puzzle as it were, but the other player need to create traps for the spy that are capable of blowing his cover, but won't give too much information away if you ask it to a non-spy player. There is a bit of a problem if the spy is asked a question really early on when they haven't been able to glean much from the other players, but because it's such a quick, social game, it tends to be more funny than unfair. Tekopo posted:The game had been interesting until then. I mean, sure, I could have picked another spot further away, but why would I if my intention was to win? random.org
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Sep 14, 2015 13:02
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Impermanent posted:AP is a pernicious problem. In my many codenames games this weekend, people were threatening the other team with using the timer. It was a pretty funny tactic and part of the team banter. Obviously, we could have used the timer each turn but just the threat of it helped with ap. Rarely though the other team would just set the timer a second after the clue was given. We all accepted that was fine.
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Sep 14, 2015 13:05
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Jedit posted:What exactly were the police doing on the second and third days, when they knew which quarter of the city your hideout was in and that it was exactly three spaces away from 3? Abberline should have had a good chance of calling you out for an instant win even if the cops couldn't get in position to block you. EDIT: Also, to emphasize a point, I didn't plot out to do the quick kills on night 3/4 right at the start of the game, it's something that I spotted at the start of the 3rd night and thought 'welp, I can just outright win here' Tekopo fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 13:19
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Chomp8645 posted:Here is movement made easy in Forbidden Stars in 5 easy steps. Yep that's pretty concise. I dunno if it's because I've played Game of Thrones and the system there works pretty similarly but it never seems particularly illogical. A void in one system is next to a void in any system next to it. Even if that takes you like this: VO OS SO-> OV Where the Os are planets, the top left V is a void and the other is a ship in a void. Those four planets are all next to one another so you can walk between them and the voids are all next to each other so you can fly between them. When I can I'll take some actual photos of some movement and hopefully that'll make more sense. Taear fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 13:23
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Ubik_Lives posted:Technically that's not entirely true. In Spyfall both the location and the identity of the spy is hidden information. It's true that most of the pressure is on the spy to create his puzzle as it were, but the other player need to create traps for the spy that are capable of blowing his cover, but won't give too much information away if you ask it to a non-spy player. Even then, the sort of vague "I know what the location is but don't want to give away too much" answers the non-spies are all giving are actually pretty close to the "something waffly because I have no idea what's going on" answer that the spy can come up with - people might be a bit suspicious if your first answer is a bit off, but there's still plenty of opportunity to divert suspicion, get a better idea of the location so you can give a less suspicious answer next time, or just focus on narrowing down what the location is for your final guess. And sometimes what you thought was a vague non-answer turns out to be oddly specific in the other player's minds, and then no-one has any suspicion of you for the entire round. Which is also really funny.
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