Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

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The Eyes Have It: Feb 10, 2008; Third Eye Sees All
...snookums

Steampunk is my anime. Anime is also my anime but w/e :v:

# ? Sep 25, 2015 01:05

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 21:45

Big McHuge: Feb 5, 2014; You wait for the war to happen like vultures.
If you want to help, prevent the war.
Don't save the remnants.
Save them all.

Gutter Owl posted:

I wish. I think Big is talking about this thing.

That is indeed the monstrosity that is currently occupying a table at my friend's place.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 01:18

Fat Samurai: Feb 16, 2011; To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

I'm playing Tragedy Looper tonight, all of us are new players. I'm playing as the Mastermid, because it's my game and I'm going to read the cases to make sure I can explain stuff. Any rules that are easy to miss?

I've played once on the forums and I remember there was very specific things you had to tell the investigators regarding whether a plot triggered and why.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 10:34

Madmarker: Jan 7, 2007

So I've recently started playing in a descent campaign with a few friends. We have the archer guy who has the eagle familiar, Runemaster Thorn, Karnon (the Yeti) and I'm Nanok of the Blade. I'm the version of Nanok thats armor is equal to my melee trait +2. I have the skill weapon master at the moment and we are fighting the spider queen in our campaign. My question is what skills should I focus on obtaining after I max out my melee trait? The tiger tattoo was already taken by Karnon the Yeti. I'm unfamiliar with the game so I really don't no what I should focus on, I'm guessing getting swift would be good at some point., but other than that, I am clueless.

edit-I should mention I believe we are doing the "road to Legend" campaign.

Madmarker fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Sep 25, 2015

# ? Sep 25, 2015 13:24

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

drat Dirty Ape posted:

I'd be interested in reading this. As a fan of the show, it's been on my list for a while (pretty far down the list, but it's still there).

I'll put it up this week sometime. Basically it boils down to the Firefly game being waaaaaaaaaay the hell too random for my taste. It's pretty well made physically and pretty well done from a graphic design and theme perspective, but it's godawful mechanically.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 13:45

Free Gratis: Apr 17, 2002; Karate Jazz Wolf

Fat Samurai posted:

I'm playing Tragedy Looper tonight, all of us are new players. I'm playing as the Mastermid, because it's my game and I'm going to read the cases to make sure I can explain stuff. Any rules that are easy to miss?

I've played once on the forums and I remember there was very specific things you had to tell the investigators regarding whether a plot triggered and why.

It's important to make sure the players know the difference between Culprits/Roles and Incidents/Plots. In the first pre-generated script, for example, there is a character with the "Killer" role, who also happens to be the Culprit of a murder incident. Thematically, it makes sense, but in terms of the rules they're completely unrelated.

One rule I would take care to watch out for is the location restrictions for characters. My first teaching attempt went terribly because the protagonists easily thwarted my plans by making illegal moves. I was so knee deep in trying to remember all the ways to win that it completely slipped my mind.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 14:13

taser rates: Mar 30, 2010

Fat Samurai posted:

I'm playing Tragedy Looper tonight, all of us are new players. I'm playing as the Mastermid, because it's my game and I'm going to read the cases to make sure I can explain stuff. Any rules that are easy to miss?

I've played once on the forums and I remember there was very specific things you had to tell the investigators regarding whether a plot triggered and why.

You never have to say directly why something triggers, only that it did and the phase of the game in which it did. The latter can be important for the protagonists, because sometimes certain phases can coincide, eg end of the last day and end of loop, and that needs to be specified.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 14:21

Fat Samurai: Feb 16, 2011; To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

Thanks. Two more questions after going through the first script in Tragey Looper:

- If the Serial Killer kills the Key Charater, do I say that the Key Characters has died, the players have lost, or should I just say that the players have lost?
- What can iexactly avoid with Goodwill Refusal? The cop's "no murder here" skill? The Office Worker "reveal role"?

# ? Sep 25, 2015 15:22

Free Gratis: Apr 17, 2002; Karate Jazz Wolf

Fat Samurai posted:

Thanks. Two more questions after going through the first script in Tragey Looper:

- If the Serial Killer kills the Key Charater, do I say that the Key Characters has died, the players have lost, or should I just say that the players have lost?
- What can iexactly avoid with Goodwill Refusal? The cop's "no murder here" skill? The Office Worker "reveal role"?

1) all you have to say is "The girl student dies. Loop ends."

2) Goodwill Refusal allows the Mastermind to deny the use of Goodwill Abilities if the character's role permits Refusal. For example, the killer has optional Goodwill Refusal, so the mastermind can choose to let the protagonists trigger a goodwill ability to obscure the fact that the character might be the killer. Other roles, like the Cultist, have mandatory Refusal.

Both of the examples you listed are Goodwill Abilities and can be refused if their hidden role allows for it.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 15:38

Morpheus: Apr 18, 2008; My favourite little monsters

Fat Samurai posted:

Thanks. Two more questions after going through the first script in Tragey Looper:

- If the Serial Killer kills the Key Charater, do I say that the Key Characters has died, the players have lost, or should I just say that the players have lost?
- What can iexactly avoid with Goodwill Refusal? The cop's "no murder here" skill? The Office Worker "reveal role"?

1) On the night phase, you turn the key character sideways to indicate that they have died. You also do any other actions on the board according to other roles. Then you simply tell the players that "You have failed." Don't tell them why. Let them study the board - chances are they'll know immediately why, but if you've been spinning a lot of plates you might have set up a number of possible lose conditions.

2) All goodwill abilities that a person has can be refused if they are a role that has Goodwill Refusal.

Bah, beaten.

I played another game of TL the other day, teaching it to a new group. Played a script...and completely forgot to put in a character. I instead blended the serial killer and the killer(?) together into one hybrid role by accident. It was not easy as Mastermind.

Morpheus fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Sep 25, 2015

# ? Sep 25, 2015 15:39

The Mantis: Jul 19, 2004; what is yall sayin?

Hosting Game of Thrones (2e, duh) this weekend with (hopefully) a full group. Any common oversights/mistakes re: the rules?

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:02

PlaneGuy: Mar 28, 2001; g e r m a n
e n g i n e e r i n g; Yam Slacker

Fat Samurai posted:

I'm playing Tragedy Looper tonight, all of us are new players. I'm playing as the Mastermid, because it's my game and I'm going to read the cases to make sure I can explain stuff. Any rules that are easy to miss?

I've played once on the forums and I remember there was very specific things you had to tell the investigators regarding whether a plot triggered and why.

Things Masterminds say:
- "The loop ends."
- "An incident has occurred."
- "An incident was going to occur, but didn't."
- "No incident occurs."
- "Someone has died!"
- "You all died!"
- "Something strange happens."

You are under no obligation to say anything else.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:24

OmegaGoo: Nov 25, 2011; Mediocrity: the standard of survival!

PlaneGuy posted:

Things Masterminds say:
- "The loop ends."
- "An incident has occurred."
- "An incident was going to occur, but didn't."
- "No incident occurs."
- "Someone has died!"
- "You all died!"
- "Something strange happens."

You are under no obligation to say anything else.

Under what circumstances would you say that one?

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:26

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

When an incident was going to occur, but didn't.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:28

CaptainRightful: Jan 11, 2005

The Mantis posted:

Hosting Game of Thrones (2e, duh) this weekend with (hopefully) a full group. Any common oversights/mistakes re: the rules?

One thing people seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around is the relationship between supply and mustering--specifically that changes in allowed army size are not resolved immediately, only when the resupply card is next drawn.

Then there's the whole difficulty of remembering every rule relating to ports...

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:34

hoiyes: May 17, 2007

CaptainRightful posted:

One thing people seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around is the relationship between supply and mustering--specifically that changes in allowed army size are not resolved immediately, only when the resupply card is next drawn.

Then there's the whole difficulty of remembering every rule relating to ports...

The best thing about the Feast for Crows expansion is that supply cards are not used,and supply is adjusted as it changes.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:39

burger time: Apr 17, 2005

OmegaGoo posted:

Under what circumstances would you say that one?

The killer has enough paranoia to trigger, but no one is around to kill for example.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:40

OmegaGoo: Nov 25, 2011; Mediocrity: the standard of survival!

Tekopo posted:

When an incident was going to occur, but didn't.

I was under the impression that you just say "nothing happens", since there was no result.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:43

AMooseDoesStuff: Dec 20, 2012

Don't the players know 'an incident is scheduled to happen today'?

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:46

Madmarker: Jan 7, 2007

You always announce whether or not an incident triggers. An incident triggers if the culprit is at their paranoia limit at the end of the day. The mastermind then resolves any effects they can, if any. If there are no effects to resolve well then you don't, but the incident still triggered and you still announce it.

AMooseDoesStuff posted:

Don't the players know 'an incident is scheduled to happen today'?

yes

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:50

LemonAIDS: Aug 7, 2009; They are pretty great.

OmegaGoo posted:

Under what circumstances would you say that one?

IIRC its when an incident triggers but nothing actually happens from it, Like there's enough enough Paranoia on the incident person to trigger it but because of some other reason it doesn't happen, like that one that kills guys in the hospital if there's intrigue at the hospital. You'd say it if the incident triggered but there's not enough intrigue at the hospital or if there's no one at the hospital to kill

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:54

Madmarker: Jan 7, 2007

LemonAIDS posted:

IIRC its when an incident triggers but nothing actually happens from it, Like there's enough enough Paranoia on the incident person to trigger it but because of some other reason it doesn't happen, like that one that kills guys in the hospital if there's intrigue at the hospital. You'd say it if the incident triggered but there's not enough intrigue at the hospital or if there's no one at the hospital to kill

You don't even have to say that, the mastermind only has to announce the incident triggered, its up to the protagonists to figure out why nothing happened.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 16:55

Some Numbers: Sep 28, 2006; "LET'S GET DOWN TO WORK!!"

OmegaGoo posted:

Under what circumstances would you say that one?

If it's the day the incident is scheduled and any one of the necessary criteria isn't fulfilled, ie any one of: the culprit is not panicked; the culprit is dead; or as previously stated, the incident can't happen due to extenuating circumstances.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 17:06

gutterdaughter: Oct 21, 2010; keep yr head up, problem girl

OmegaGoo posted:

I was under the impression that you just say "nothing happens", since there was no result.

Some Numbers posted:

If it's the day the incident is scheduled and any one of the necessary criteria isn't fulfilled, ie any one of: the culprit is not panicked; the culprit is dead; or as previously stated, the incident can't happen due to extenuating circumstances.

You do have to specify the difference between "no incident occurs" (i.e. the culprit did not panic, or is too dead to be paranoid), and "an incident occurs, but nothing happens" (i.e. the culprit panicked but was unable to fulfil any of the effects of the incident).

rulebook, page 25 posted:

If an Incident is scheduled to happen, the Mastermind checks if the below conditions are met:

1) The Incident�s culprit is still alive AND
2) The culprit has reached his/her Paranoia limit (=panic)

If either condition is unfulfilled, the Mastermind just states that �No Incident happens�.

If both conditions are met, the Incident happens: the Mastermind declares that the Incident happens, and resolves it, again without revealing who did it (though it might be obvious). In case there is some sort of choice on who or what the Incident affects, it�s the Mastermind who decides. Please note that if there are some extra conditions that need to be met in order for an Incident to happen (like the Hospital Horror that requires that the Hospital has Intrigue counters), and they are not fulfilled, the Mastermind must still declare that the Incident occurs, but nothing happens. For example, the Mastermind can say, �A murder almost took place, but something prevented it.�

# ? Sep 25, 2015 17:17

Scyther: Dec 29, 2010

Basically you have to distinguish between the following two situations:
a) The culprit did not have enough paranoia for the incident to occur (or culprit is dead)
b) The culprit had enough paranoia, but some other factor or prerequisite prevented the incident from taking effect
and you have to let the protagonists know if it was a or b.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 17:19

Some Numbers: Sep 28, 2006; "LET'S GET DOWN TO WORK!!"

Oh, interesting. I think I've always just gone "an incident was scheduled, but didn't happen for some reason."

# ? Sep 25, 2015 17:21

sector_corrector: Jan 18, 2012; by Nyc_Tattoo

I guess I could search myself, but is there a narrated playthrough of Trag Looper from the mastermind perspective? I feel like that would be the easiest way for me to make sure I fully understand stuff before trying to mastermind a game.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 17:54

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

sector_corrector posted:

I guess I could search myself, but is there a narrated playthrough of Trag Looper from the mastermind perspective? I feel like that would be the easiest way for me to make sure I fully understand stuff before trying to mastermind a game.

Rahdo's runthrough might help. He runs through a fan scenario, so there's no chance of spoiling yourself on one of the official ones.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 18:14

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I'll put it up this week sometime. Basically it boils down to the Firefly game being waaaaaaaaaay the hell too random for my taste. It's pretty well made physically and pretty well done from a graphic design and theme perspective, but it's godawful mechanically.

To say ti boils down at all is something of an exaggeration. I hadn't realised quite how long it is...

Feel free to tear it apart. http://thespaceinvader.co.uk/wordpress/2015/09/25/firefly-the-game/

# ? Sep 25, 2015 18:18

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

thespaceinvader posted:

To say ti boils down at all is something of an exaggeration. I hadn't realised quite how long it is...

Feel free to tear it apart. http://thespaceinvader.co.uk/wordpress/2015/09/25/firefly-the-game/

You... have... too... many... ellipses...

Other than that, fairly informative and I believe you on actively avoiding the game.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 18:41

Damn Dirty Ape: Jan 23, 2015; I love you Dr. Zaius

thespaceinvader posted:

To say ti boils down at all is something of an exaggeration. I hadn't realised quite how long it is...

Feel free to tear it apart. http://thespaceinvader.co.uk/wordpress/2015/09/25/firefly-the-game/

Interesting read. Your description makes it sound a bit like a cross between space Talisman and something like Merchant of Venus (which I haven't played in a long long time, so I might be off on that). It would proabably be a big hit with Firefly fans who happened to be into very thematic 'experience/narrative driven' type of games.

Edit:

Also this part was interesting (bold emphasis added by me):

quote:

Win conditions. I found it really off-putting when halfway through my first play of the game having mostly enjoyed meandering around the board trading and doing merc work and missions and misadventures a fair amount, I realised that I was irretrievably in second place, and unless the person in the lead got unlucky, I had no way to catch up.

The bolded part seems to indicate that you were having fun until you realized that you were not winning and could not catch up. I can understand how that would be frustrating in a completely random game, but I'm curious how that is any different from other types of games you happened to enjoy. For instance, the one time I played Caverna it was completely obvious who was going to win between 2 players with about 2 or 3 turns to go. In fact, the lack of randomness really made it impossible for the rest of us (it was a 6 player game) to catch up.

Damn Dirty Ape fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Sep 25, 2015

# ? Sep 25, 2015 18:44

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Dirk the Average posted:

You... have... too... many... ellipses...

TWENTY... TWO... ELLIPSES...

:psyduck:

# ? Sep 25, 2015 18:46

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

I like ellipses OK?

It's something to do with my speaking style.

But yeah, I need to use less of them.

drat Dirty Ape posted:

Interesting read. Your description makes it sound a bit like a cross between space Talisman and something like Merchant of Venus (which I haven't played in a long long time, so I might be off on that). It would proabably be a big hit with Firefly fans who happened to be into very thematic 'experience/narrative driven' type of games.

Edit:

Also this part was interesting (bold emphasis added by me):

The bolded part seems to indicate that you were having fun until you realized that you were not winning and could not catch up. I can understand how that would be frustrating in a completely random game, but I'm curious how that is any different from other types of games you happened to enjoy. For instance, the one time I played Caverna it was completely obvious who was going to win between 2 players with about 2 or 3 turns to go. In fact, the lack of randomness really made it impossible for the rest of us (it was a 6 player game) to catch up.

It's partly that I was having fun until I realised I was losing and couldn't catch up. But it's partly that I realised that there wasn't anything much I really could have done BETTER at any point, and that at several points I'd done the optimal thing and just been hosed by the dice/cards, which was one reason (and whether it was actually major or not, it certainly felt that way) why I was behind.

In Caverna you've got to play pretty spectacularly badly to not stand a remote chance of winning with that much time to go, but if you do... it should be obvious why, and it's not going to be because a random thing screwed you up after you'd planned the right strategy, it's going to be because you planned the wrong strategy or executed it poorly, or both.

And yeah, if you like the 'experience generator' type games, and you're a massive Firefly fan, it's worth playing. I'd probably play it again if it was that or nothing. But I'd have to really turn off my normal gaming brain to make it work even slightly for me.

And yeah, there's a lot of parallels with merchants of venus there, but MoV at least lacks QUITE so much uncontrollable randomness, and lets you roll the dice THEN cope with what they give you, rather than plan, roll, then OOOPS can't do it.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 18:56

Damn Dirty Ape: Jan 23, 2015; I love you Dr. Zaius

thespaceinvader posted:

I like ellipses OK?

It's something to do with my speaking style.

But yeah, I need to use less of them.

It's partly that I was having fun until I realised I was losing and couldn't catch up. But it's partly that I realised that there wasn't anything much I really could have done BETTER at any point, and that at several points I'd done the optimal thing and just been hosed by the dice/cards, which was one reason (and whether it was actually major or not, it certainly felt that way) why I was behind.

In Caverna you've got to play pretty spectacularly badly to not stand a remote chance of winning with that much time to go, but if you do... it should be obvious why, and it's not going to be because a random thing screwed you up after you'd planned the right strategy, it's going to be because you planned the wrong strategy or executed it poorly, or both.

And yeah, if you like the 'experience generator' type games, and you're a massive Firefly fan, it's worth playing. I'd probably play it again if it was that or nothing. But I'd have to really turn off my normal gaming brain to make it work even slightly for me.

And yeah, there's a lot of parallels with merchants of venus there, but MoV at least lacks QUITE so much uncontrollable randomness, and lets you roll the dice THEN cope with what they give you, rather than plan, roll, then OOOPS can't do it.

The Caverna game came down to the owner and one player who is an Agricola addict. The rest of us had never played Agricola or Caverna before and (obviously) played pretty poorly (also imo 6 players is way too many for Caverna). Maybe Caverna was a bad example of a runaway leader issue in a non-random game, I'll have to think about it a bit more.

I think one of my groups main issues is that we have one guy who is like a boardgame/math genius and wins any 'non-random' game the majority of the time, a few players (me included) who are decent and pretty competitive, a few average gamers, and a player who...well... is kind of terrible and almost never wins anything. For this reason I sometimes like to inject a more random luck-based game now and then just to even things out a bit (that or a game where everyone can gang up on the first guy, but not only is he a boardgame genius but he's also a pretty good bullshit artist that the terrible guy falls for EVERY TIME), which is another reason I was interested in a game like Firefly, but it sounds a little long for my taste.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 19:13

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

I have similar problems. I wrote a big post (and probably the start of a series of similar ones) a couple of weeks ago about why I like the games I like, entitled 'games I enjoy losing' which might also be worth a look.

I didn't find Firefly too long, but I'm used to playing very long games like Civilisation and Descent 1e, and I think the games we played of Firefly were pretty short - it certainly has a rep for dragging.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 19:16

Danimo: Jul 2, 2005

Can anyone recommend a game that is kind of RPGish and is good with two players? How are Descent or Mage Knight with two?

Fianc� and I have been playing a lot of Zombicide & Dead of Winter and we like them well enough but I know there's better poo poo out there that hits the same good spots (loot, experience, scenarios, randomness) without the game taking a dump on us for no reason sometimes.

also I'm tired of zombies. Bonus points if game has good minis to paint.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 19:53

sonatinas: Apr 15, 2003; Seattle Karate Vs. L.A. Karate

Danimo posted:

Can anyone recommend a game that is kind of RPGish and is good with two players? How are Descent or Mage Knight with two?

Fianc� and I have been playing a lot of Zombicide & Dead of Winter and we like them well enough but I know there's better poo poo out there that hits the same good spots (loot, experience, scenarios, randomness) without the game taking a dump on us for no reason sometimes.

also I'm tired of zombies. Bonus points if game has good minis to paint.

I play a lot of mage knight with my spouse for 2. I guess you can buy your own minis for the characters.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 19:58

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

sonatinas posted:

I play a lot of mage knight with my spouse for 2. I guess you can buy your own minis for the characters.

Or repaint the ones it comes with.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 19:58

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Yeah, Mage Knight would be my recommendation.

The D&D board games are also reportedly reasonable and come with a decent set of minis.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 19:59

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 21:45

Lhet: Apr 2, 2008; bloop

I hate how box inserts never support sleeves. Is it really such an uncommon practice?

# ? Sep 25, 2015 20:00

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

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