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Tekopo posted:I like the 'faults' in scare quotes, that's a nice touch. Ok, the game has many faults which many people in this thread have posted about, most of which I agree with and some of which I do not. This poster is going to play it with his or her brother for Christmas, and I thought I'd interject a positive post about the game. As their brother already bought the game, they aren't really losing anything by giving it a try and may end up liking it anyway. I'd be surprised if any of the regular posters here didn't have a game or two that they enjoy playing even though the thread consensus is that it is a bad game (for example, the recent posts about Betrayal).
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Dec 15, 2015 15:24
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| # ? May 30, 2024 10:22 |
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Hey guys, I'm looking for something to get my family for Christmas. For the record, most of their boardgaming experience doesn't extend much beyond Catan, but they are open to new experiences as long as they aren't overly heavy/complex. Preferably a space-esque theme too, as they are all sci-fi nerds to some extent. Thoughts?
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Dec 15, 2015 15:33
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Space Alert  Galaxy Trucker and Quantum would be my picks probably
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Dec 15, 2015 15:38
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AmericanGeeksta posted:Hey guys, I'm looking for something to get my family for Christmas. For the record, most of their boardgaming experience doesn't extend much beyond Catan, but they are open to new experiences as long as they aren't overly heavy/complex. Preferably a space-esque theme too, as they are all sci-fi nerds to some extent. Thoughts? The tile map should remind them of Catan, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-imperium-third-edition 
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Dec 15, 2015 15:40
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drat Dirty Ape posted:Ok, the game has many faults which many people in this thread have posted about, most of which I agree with and some of which I do not. This poster is going to play it with his or her brother for Christmas, and I thought I'd interject a positive post about the game. As their brother already bought the game, they aren't really losing anything by giving it a try and may end up liking it anyway. I'd be surprised if any of the regular posters here didn't have a game or two that they enjoy playing even though the thread consensus is that it is a bad game (for example, the recent posts about Betrayal). Going off on a tangent, I don't think that ANY game is actually completely without faults. Hell, top-rated, best-game-on-BGG Twilight Struggle has more than a few issues: it's still a good game, though, imo.
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Dec 15, 2015 15:41
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Tekopo posted:I don't disagree with that: i regularly play games that have many faults and I acknowledge them as such readily. I just found it funny that you would use scare quotes, to be honest, because it subtly implies that you don't think the game actually has faults. Why exactly DID you use scare quotes in that sentence, btw? I think it is fair to put "faults" in scare quotes. The reasons most people dislike Cosmic Encounter are the same reasons that it is popular, so it's faults are also its strengths.
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Dec 15, 2015 15:47
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Target has Codenames in for retail + free shipping. If you get it today it should ship by christmas eve http://www.target.com/p/codenames/-/A-50364627#prodSlot=medium_1_2&term=codenames
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Dec 15, 2015 15:52
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No, some of the faults of Cosmic Encounter aren't actually its strength, no matter how much wishful thinking you can muster. Getting hosed because you get bad hands is not a strength. Luck should not diminish the number of options that a player should have, but in CE, it does. In the same way, getting repeatedly screwed due to quagmire/bear trap in Twilight Struggle is also lovely and is a distinct fault of the game, not a strength. Other faults that the game has can be considered strengths, yes, like for example variable alien powers, but even drat Dirty Ape acknowledges that he agrees with some faults and not with others.
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Dec 15, 2015 15:53
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AmericanGeeksta posted:Hey guys, I'm looking for something to get my family for Christmas. For the record, most of their boardgaming experience doesn't extend much beyond Catan, but they are open to new experiences as long as they aren't overly heavy/complex. Preferably a space-esque theme too, as they are all sci-fi nerds to some extent. Thoughts? Among the Stars, Eminent Domain, Race/Roll for the Galaxy? Look up some Youtube game play to see if you think they look like a good fit.
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Dec 15, 2015 15:54
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Rutibex posted:I think it is fair to put "faults" in scare quotes. The reasons most people dislike Cosmic Encounter are the same reasons that it is popular, so it's faults are also its strengths. I just find it to be super, super boring. I know a few people who really love it, but it's never clicked for me.
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Dec 15, 2015 15:57
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Tekopo posted:No, some of the faults of Cosmic Encounter aren't actually its strength, no matter how much wishful thinking you can muster. Getting hosed because you get bad hands is not a strength. Luck should not diminish the number of options that a player should have, but in CE, it does. In the same way, getting repeatedly screwed due to quagmire/bear trap in Twilight Struggle is also lovely and is a distinct fault of the game, not a strength. I regularly play with people who are not into super deep games, and they refuse to play anything that isn't random as hell. Getting hosed by a bad hand every once in a while is a feature, not a bug. I have been seriously considering picking up Cosmic Encounter, because I know they will love it.
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Dec 15, 2015 15:59
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Tekopo posted:I don't disagree with that: i regularly play games that have many faults and I acknowledge them as such readily. I just found it funny that you would use scare quotes, to be honest, because it subtly implies that you don't think the game actually has faults. Why exactly DID you use scare quotes in that sentence, btw? An entire post analyzing someone's usage of quotation marks is exactly the type of thing I have come to expect from the wonderful SA board games thread©. In other news, my copy of Keyflower from the Kickstarter reprint is finally going to arrive tomorrow. I still haven't played Keyflower but I'm excited to try it out. Anything a group of first-timers should know before learning to play?
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Dec 15, 2015 16:02
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topiKal posted:In other news, my copy of Keyflower from the Kickstarter reprint is finally going to arrive tomorrow. I still haven't played Keyflower but I'm excited to try it out. Anything a group of first-timers should know before learning to play? At least one martial art.
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Dec 15, 2015 16:04
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Rutibex posted:I regularly play with people who are not into super deep games, and they refuse to play anything that isn't random as hell. Getting hosed by a bad hand every once in a while is a feature, not a bug. I have been seriously considering picking up Cosmic Encounter, because I know they will love it. Rutibex buy Fields of Fire.
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Dec 15, 2015 16:05
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I'll never tire to say it, but randomness is not bad, randomness done badly is bad. Removing options due to bad luck is not good. Long games with lots of luck are not good. topiKal posted:An entire post analyzing someone's usage of quotation marks is exactly the type of thing I have come to expect from the wonderful SA board games thread©.
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Dec 15, 2015 16:05
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Lichtenstein posted:Rutibex buy Fields of Fire.
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Dec 15, 2015 16:08
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I predict that the release of FoF 2e/FoF II will coincide with the rapture, the coming of the anti-christ. Since their release keep getting pushed back indefinitely, this prediction is much better than a fixed one, since I can't be ever disproven.
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Dec 15, 2015 16:12
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Tekopo posted:I don't disagree with that: i regularly play games that have many faults and I acknowledge them as such readily. I just found it funny that you would use scare quotes, to be honest, because it subtly implies that you don't think the game actually has faults. Why exactly DID you use scare quotes in that sentence, btw? Well, I didn't want to get carried away with a tangent where it appeared like I was overly defending Cosmic again, but some people really hate the random kooky alien powers and how they interact with each other when that is one of the things that my group and I like the most about Cosmic. I realize that it can often lead to bizarre games, but often times win or lose I find the game at it's most entertaining when the crazy stuff takes over. I once lost EVERY ship I had on my very first turn (which was the very first turn of the game) so believe me, I know it has faults (though to be fair, it was also a pretty terrible decision on my part). I feel like I need to add that I hardly ever actually play Cosmic anymore and would much rather play a Vlaada game, Archipelago, or Chaos in the Old World or something, I just don't think it's quite as terrible as a lot of people and it scratches the itch when we are in the mood for some randomness. Also, it's extremely rare for us to have a Cosmic game last over an hour which is a plus.
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Dec 15, 2015 16:20
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http://cardsagainsthumanity.com/blackfriday/
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Dec 15, 2015 16:21
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drat Dirty Ape posted:Well, I didn't want to get carried away with a tangent where it appeared like I was overly defending Cosmic again, but some people really hate the random kooky alien powers and how they interact with each other when that is one of the things that my group and I like the most about Cosmic. I realize that it can often lead to bizarre games, but often times win or lose I find the game at it's most entertaining when the crazy stuff takes over. I once lost EVERY ship I had on my very first turn (which was the very first turn of the game) so believe me, I know it has faults (though to be fair, it was also a pretty terrible decision on my part). I think most of the backlash against CE is due to its perceived popularity: it is ranked highly on BGG, SU&SD always has it in the top 10 etc. The game itself is much better than stuff like Talisman or Munchkin or even Arkham Horror, but since it is ranked so highly, it polarizes people into the 'best thing ever' and 'worst thing ever' camps, leaving out the nuance.
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Dec 15, 2015 16:27
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Lichtenstein posted:Rutibex
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Dec 15, 2015 16:40
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Dead Man's Ham posted:Target has Codenames in for retail + free shipping. If you get it today it should ship by christmas eve Thank you very much for the heads up here. I had given up grabbing this for a reasonable price before the end of the holidays. Now I should have it in time to play during Christmas!
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Dec 15, 2015 16:42
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topiKal posted:An entire post analyzing someone's usage of quotation marks is exactly the type of thing I have come to expect from the wonderful SA board games thread©. Common things to emphasize when teaching new people: Green meeples are exactly like every other meeple, just green. They are not every color at once, and they still go back in the bag at the end of the season if they would have normally. The six meeple per tile limit applies only to activation, not towards bid sizes. Don't put a tile such that it points a road into your river. Explain the winter point scoring bonuses from boats at the start of the game, particularly longest loop so they can plan their village around it. Losing bids can be moved elsewhere, but have to stick together. Resources gained from a center tile or someone else's village go on your home tile. If gained from your own village, it goes on the tile that generated it.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:18
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Tekopo posted:I'll never tire to say it, but randomness is not bad, randomness done badly is bad. Removing options due to bad luck is not good. Long games with lots of luck are not good. See, this is the point: Bad game design may be a feature. If your group consists of people who are not taking the game seriously and not making any plans except "this looks cool, do it!", bad game design lets them stay in the game and sometimes have succes, and gives them plenty of good stories. Good game design is bad for that kind of group, because it punishes bad choices. Cosmic Encounters has this feature of bad design (as far as I can tell, I haven't played it).
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Dec 15, 2015 17:19
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drat Dirty Ape posted:I once lost EVERY ship I had on my very first turn (which was the very first turn of the game) so believe me, I know it has faults (though to be fair, it was also a pretty terrible decision on my part). I don't think losing everything when you decide to go all-in with Amoeba is a fault.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:24
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Keyflower (+expansions) are in stock at Cardhaus, fy collective i. Comes out to about $55 shipped within the US, free shipping on $125+ Price for all 3 comes out to $113, which is the same as getting the Kickstarter shipped, just toss in another $12 game and you're golden.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:47
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Lottery of Babylon posted:I don't think losing everything when you decide to go all-in with Amoeba is a fault. Eh, I didn't really think so either at the time (which is why I said it was a terrible decision), but it certainly speaks to the randomness of the game. My opponent was dealt the equivalent of a royal flush in his hand to counter it (if I recall it was something like a combo of the 40, reinforcement cards, and maybe the card that made my allies go away, or something like that. It was a long time ago). Is it a fault if a person can be completely eliminated on turn 1, even if it can only happen with one of the races in a very specific circumstance? It kind of ties into the wacky alien randomness that people don't like.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:53
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drat Dirty Ape posted:Eh, I didn't really think so either at the time (which is why I said it was a terrible decision), but it certainly speaks to the randomness of the game. My opponent was dealt the equivalent of a royal flush in his hand to counter it (if I recall it was something like a combo of the 40, reinforcement cards, and maybe the card that made my allies go away, or something like that. It was a long time ago). Is it a fault if a person can be completely eliminated on turn 1, even if it can only happen with one of the races in a very specific circumstance? It kind of ties into the wacky alien randomness that people don't like. You can't lose all 20 ships if you don't wager all 20 ships. (Even if you'd won the encounter, you'd have given up all your home colonies, and with them your alien power.)
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Dec 15, 2015 17:55
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The problem with Cosmic and Betrayal is that their design runs counter to most of the modern assumptions about how board games are made. Modern games are built to make player choices matter, and they do this in two central ways: by providing an experience where your later choices build on your earlier choices and by removing elements of chance that obfuscate the results of decisions. Elements of chance aren't just die rolls and card draws though - every other human is essentially a random actor for the purposes of game design. Games can make assumptions that players will try to play to win, but they need to make playing to win vs. playing for spite or in bad faith clearly distinct or they greatly increase the propensity for players to act "randomly." That is, out of malice or out of grudges, instead of in accordance with how the game "wants to be played." Betrayal's central element of failure - which the game is built around - is the idea that you won't know who the traitor is or what form they will take until second act of the game begins, but the game has other smaller points of failure as well. Equipment draws are random. You can wind up very prepared or very unprepared by the beginning of the 2nd act. Even then, the betrayer's different forms aren't balanced very well, and some will outright destroy a group while others make it much easier for the human players to overcome the monster. Its problem is not social dynamics, but the sheer weight of chance on the choices players will have to make. Combat Commander: Europe has a load of randomness, but its randomness is based on a lot of factors that can be controlled. The Allies may not have a card to move forward exactly when they need to take a specific objective, but they can spend a turn dumping a hand or taking a few potshots without necessarily ruining their chances for victory. Die rolls are used with an enforced bell curve, thanks to die rolls being printed on cards. Plus, those rolls are capable of being heavily modified by drawing upon a greater volume of firepower thanks to superior positioning. The randomness in Combat Commander serves to provide thematic, narrative experiences without getting in the way of good decision-making. Cosmic, however, can involve a lot of ratfucking because it has a lot of the randomness of Betrayal mixed in with the ability to pursue or not pursue grudges. It's such a political game that there's no clear delineation between skillful play and grudge-based behavior. The areas of choice players have in the game are in how to maneuver for better cards if they have bad cards, and how to play the political game. Because so much of the game will come down to politics, it is essentially a game about yelling and relying on human psychology to win. This doesn't make it bad, necessarily. It may be that this is exactly the kind of game you would like to play, except Coup does all of this in 5 minutes instead of two hours. The COIN games jump this hurdle by keeping each player's route to victory so difficult that players can't afford to do anything but further their own agenda with minor concessions to allies at all times. There's no moment where a player viciously pursue a grudge without essentially tanking the whole game, and wargames are niche enough that such a player essentially forfeits all opportunities to play again by behaving so irrationally. The reason that so many people like Betrayal and Cosmic does comes down to the fact that they are simply easier to play and don't require that players invest in their decisions. They are perfect games for having people share a social bond around a table because there is no need to really dig deep into how a game is being played. This does not make them "good" games, in the sense that they conform to modern design principles. It may make them good bonding experiences. There are plenty of non-gamers I'd recommend games like these or Dead of Winter or whatever to because they simply won't engage with the rules in a way that will make the design matter. People can be happy playing Zombicide or Munchkin or that new Ghostbusters board game which uses roll-to-hit in the year of our lord 2015. However, this thread is pretty clearly oriented toward people who know and play a lot of games, and thus have expectations about the design. You wouldn't post in a thread about the filmography of David Lynch in order to talk about an episode of Maury you like unless you're supermechagodzilla. This doesn't make you an idiot or whatever for playing games the H I V E M I N D thinks are bad. You just don't want the same things out of games as they do. Similarly, 4th edition D&D is a mechanically superior product to 5th edition, but it isn't what many people want because it asked different questions of its players and GMs than those posed by other editions. It wasn't "bad" or "not D&D," just a very different design that got a lot right. Ultimately, the newer edition is simpler and less good about giving players of different charcters the same amount of agency, but the new edition is what most people imagine D&D to be like. Betrayal and Cosmic are what people imagine a good time with their friends playing a board game to be like. Those games naturally inspire jokes and comments and teasing in a way that a tense, quiet game of Agricola won't, at least not until all players are very familiar with the game.
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Dec 15, 2015 18:09
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Lottery of Babylon posted:You can't lose all 20 ships if you don't wager all 20 ships. Ok, then I take back that one specific example as being a fault with the game and reapply it to being a fault with the player.  Although, now that you mention that.... is it even possible for the Amoeba player to wager all of their ships, or would you lose your ability as soon as you took the last ship from your 3rd colony?
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Dec 15, 2015 18:10
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Impermanent posted:Ghostbusters board game A friend of a friend picked this up and really wants to play it (he's a huge Ghostbusters fan). What exactly am I in for?
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Dec 15, 2015 18:20
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Bottom line is game design is so much better now you could probably find something more enjoyable instead of Cosmic Encounter. King of Tokyo does a lot of the same things that Cosmic does but in a streamlined format with at least a few meaningful decisions and a much shorter playtime. You could probably retheme KoT into CE express with a little bit of work.Dirk the Average posted:A friend of a friend picked this up and really wants to play it (he's a huge Ghostbusters fan). What exactly am I in for? Wet garbage farts. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 18:21
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Dirk the Average posted:A friend of a friend picked this up and really wants to play it (he's a huge Ghostbusters fan). What exactly am I in for? How much do you like Zombicide? Its mechanics look very similar.
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Dec 15, 2015 18:24
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Impermanent posted:How much do you like Zombicide? Its mechanics look very similar. Everything I've read is it's Zombicide, but more repetitive and worse production values.
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Dec 15, 2015 18:31
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drat Dirty Ape posted:Ok, then I take back that one specific example as being a fault with the game and reapply it to being a fault with the player. Wait, you want an actual rules question answered? Cosmic doesn't do too well with those, trust me. (unless it's actually in the rulebook or faq, but generally, the answer is "eh, whatever works, just houserule it if you can't figure it out)
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Dec 15, 2015 18:59
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Impermanent posted:
Nay, not so. At least not for Betrayal (I don't remember Cosmic Encounter well enough to say much about it.) The thing is, you can have a demonstrably bad episode of Maury, even if the bar is set pretty low and even if the standards are totally different than a David Lynch film. There are some standards, though we rarely think about them. And Betrayal is like an episode where Maury stands up for 25 minutes rambling about nothing, and then the episode ends as soon as they introduce the first guest. This sort of thing might fly if there were literally no better shows of this genre on TV, and it's true there is a dearth of good games with horror themes and strong narrative elements (because it's a hard thing to do well) but that doesn't make the problems any less real. Betrayal fails in a variety of ways at its intended goal of being an entertaining, quasi-interactive spooky story with friends. Its pacing is terrible from a purely narrative perspective. The Haunt roll system is a great source of tension but it obviously needs a tweak to the fine details, as game length is extremely variable, and sometimes people just get bored after an unusually large number of failed rolls. The Haunt phase is often a terrible anticlimax. And the early-game mechanics actively detract from the tension you're supposed to feel. It's supposed to be nerve-wracking to explore a haunted house, right? Shouldn't you be worried about what might be behind that door? In Betrayal there's no point worrying: the same tile is quite literally behind both doors. In fact one of your biggest fears at this stage is running out of movement points because you literally couldn't run fast enough to find a spooky thing this turn. Now you can make an effort to get in the spirit and psyche yourself up every time you flip a tile, but it would be objectively better if the game mechanics supported your effort instead of getting in the way. My preferred solution to this last issue, for instance, would be to implement a simple push-your-luck mechanic whereby you're rewarded for exploring rooms but penalized for getting too greedy about it. Then you sincerely have to take a second and ask yourself "Do I dare to see what's in the next room?" In fact this is a good change for the narrative and also an Interesting Decision (TM), and that's not a coincidence. No dogmatism about it.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:01
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I agree with you in your specifics, but I don't think that you really damage my argument's spirit, which is that frequently what people want out of a board game has nothing to do with well-designed rules or a coherent vision. A modernized version of Betrayal would be better constructed, but it would also tilt the scales of the game in favor of good players. People play roulette and slot machines when the option of poker is available. Why do you think that is?
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Dec 15, 2015 19:06
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topiKal posted:An entire post analyzing someone's usage of quotation marks is exactly the type of thing I have come to expect from the wonderful SA board games thread©. In my experience, the more meeples you have the better you do. But I've only played a few times.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:12
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Impermanent posted:I agree with you in your specifics, but I don't think that you really damage my argument's spirit, which is that frequently what people want out of a board game has nothing to do with well-designed rules or a coherent vision. A modernized version of Betrayal would be better constructed, but it would also tilt the scales of the game in favor of good players. People play roulette and slot machines when the option of poker is available. Why do you think that is? Their motivations are irrelevant, and the analogy is not a good one. But let's try to work with it. Let's say a group of people go gambling. One person pulls the lever and 5 other people watch. Now, imagine a slot machine with 6 arms and everybody had to pull one to start the machine spinning. In terms of an enjoyable social experience, is it preferable to let 5 people not be actively involved, or give everyone the chance to participate? Even if nothing else was changed, and it's still all total random bullshit luck, it would still be better if something that is supposed to be a social activity lets everyone participate. Bobby's primary goal may not be to marvel at a well-constructed ruleset, but if he's playing a game, a better designed one will result in a better experience nonetheless.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:25
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| # ? May 30, 2024 10:22 |
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After backing this Keyflower reprint, I think it'll be a long, long time before I back another board game Kickstarter. I received a notification that my package was ready to ship, oh...9 days ago. This is after being told that it'd arrive by November. And the status has been stuck at "Shipping label has been created" since then, in Mississauga. Sigh. I just want to play a game of hatred, spite, and meeples, is that so much to ask.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:29
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