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CommonShore posted:I bought a copy of Pandemic Legacy for this group. Do you think it would be bad to do it with a group when we don't know if everyone will be there every time? Or do you think that it could work for a group if there was the general understanding that it's fair to play a round or two of it if any 4 are there on the given night? I mean mechancially/fun speaking - not personality wise, of course. The game has an ongoing story and the mechanics can change pretty dramatically over the course of one game, so I'd probably recommend playing it with the same group every time.
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Jan 17, 2017 23:56
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Got to play Dead Winter: Long Night because my friends are dumb. Sparky the Wonderdog and Blue the Test Monkey proceeded to betray the human race and usher their fellow animals into a brighter future, free from the oppression of the Man. Last time they were seen heading towards the setting sun, Sparky carrying a rifle and Blue wielding his trusty shotgun and wearing night vision googles. We expect a sequel where they fight crime and have wacky adventures along the road. Mikey Purp posted:The game has an ongoing story and the mechanics can change pretty dramatically over the course of one game, so I'd probably recommend playing it with the same group every time. Nonsense, you can do tacky voiceovers with "previously, on P:L" and yell the other players for the mess you are in. Mikey is right
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Jan 18, 2017 00:00
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Shadow225 posted:There's a few things wrong here. I hate modifying analogies, so I'll just address what I see as the key points. I think that this is something that you work out fairly quickly. If someone isn't feeling something and either refuses to play a game or just clearly isn't enjoying it, you play something different. Then you know for next time that if you want to play this type of game you don't invite that player, and as that player you know whether or not you want to show up next time you're invited. Nobody is going to love every game the same way, and some games just don't work for some groups. quote:2. You will have exactly the number of players you need for all board games. Some games have flexible player counts. Some do not. What happens when a group of 5 wants to play a strictly 4 player game? If everyone is set on playing something, that idea gets put on hold. If everyone is white hot on the idea, and one person wants to take a break, is there actually an issue? I think this is where we probably have a fundamental disagreement. I have never really encountered a setting where one individual can closely spectate (as in spectate & still interact with participants) an activity without becoming a distraction. This is a huge problem for me, because I find it diminishes the quality of the experience. You may have a different experience or perception of the experience, but if we were ever in the same group, even if you thought the idea was kosher, I can tell you that it would really bother me. I would never suggest a 4 player game when we had 5 people unless one of those people was getting ready to leave. I honestly can't imagine why it would even come up. quote:3. Board gaming is a social activity. People are more than just board game players. It is entirely possible to enjoy one's presence without being in a game. Absolutely, that's why I do things that aren't board games, and also why even when playing board games we take breaks and play lighter games. I also go out for drinks with people after hockey, or grab coffee after a run, or whatever. There is the activity, and there is the socializing. If I can do both at the same time and still get a quality experience, then that's ideal, but in many instances that is just going to provide a worse experience doing the activity and a worse experience socializing than if we had just done each thing separately. I think context for why you play is important to all this though. I play board games with my kid, my family (at times), and my girlfriend in order to share an activity that we enjoy while in each other's company. I try to make sure that the games we're playing are good, but the games aren't really the point. In that context if someone wants to sit out, I don't care. When I spend an evening specifically going out to play board games, particularly with people I'm not super close with, the quality of the gaming experience matters to me to a much greater extent.
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Jan 18, 2017 00:56
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I don't really see how not wanting to split into groups is "nerd fallacy." If anything, It seems more nerdy to me to split into groups. It's very normal at boardgaming meetups to split into groups because most people are there for boardgames. If you're just there to hang out and boardgames are second, I totally understand why people wouldn't want to split into smaller groups just to play a better game. They aren't there for the games.
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Jan 18, 2017 01:23
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It's a fallacy that is commonly perpetuated in nerd groups who are used to being personally excluded so they try not to exclude anyone but end up causing social problems anyway.
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Jan 18, 2017 01:27
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silvergoose posted:It's a fallacy that is commonly perpetuated in nerd groups who are used to being personally excluded so they try not to exclude anyone but end up causing social problems anyway. Ahh okay, I can see what that means then I think
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Jan 18, 2017 01:31
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See also "as friends we must like the same things or we aren't compatible" and "disagreement is a form of betrayal".
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Jan 18, 2017 01:48
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I'm really happy with my group, because even though we don't meet frequently, we never have problems like people talk about here.
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Jan 18, 2017 01:53
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Jordan7hm posted:I played Mage Knight with my 8 year old last night. I had to read the cards and give him some pretty significant direction but he had a blast running through the opening scenario. I'm pretty sure I got most of the rules correct given there wasn't much complicated, except I did screw up the tile placement. firms up jaw, chews madly on inside of cheek
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Jan 18, 2017 02:32
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Here is the original Five Geek Social Fallacies article, written in 2003 by Michael Suileabhain-Wilson. You should probably read it, if you're going to discuss the topic and its bearing on board game meetups.
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Jan 18, 2017 02:32
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That said once you boil down the rules it's pretty much 'make my numbers bigger than the monsters', I guess. Your kid better be on Dungeon Lords within the year though.
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Jan 18, 2017 02:32
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I have Castles of Mad King Ludwig coming in the next few days since I couldn't resist how cheap it was on Amazon and pretty excited, been wanting to get it for awhile now and looks right up my alley. But I'm currently putting in a CSI order and just need to spend about $15 more for free shipping so is Castles of Mad King Ludwig Secrets expansion any good? I suppose I should really just play the game first to see if I like the base game but I'm pretty sure I will. I guess the other option is that one of the items in my CSI cart is Tash Kalar and I see there's some expansion decks I could just drop a few in to get it up, but I'm a little more iffy if we'll like Tash Kalar. But if so are those worth getting? Xaris fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 03:02
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Jordan7hm posted:I played Mage Knight with my 8 year old last night. Holy poo poo. That's impressive!
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Jan 18, 2017 03:16
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Stelas posted:firms up jaw, chews madly on inside of cheek Hah. Yeah I thought about that as I wrote it. I think I probably missed some plays but mostly it seems like the gotchas are people not understanding that spells aren't actions and stuff like that. For the intro scenario at least the game doesn't seem that crazy especially since all our fights were 1v1 and we only barely used units. I did have trouble with the monster den card saying night rules and that you couldn't use units. That one threw me for a loop and I pored over the rulebook trying to figure out where I missed the night rules for units. e: ^^^ he directed where he wanted to go, picked the skill and advanced action on level up, and made the final decisions, but on a tactical level I was basically playing solo x2 and presenting him with different options. He's good with games but certainly wouldn't be able to manage it himself for a while yet. Mage Knight as a game managed by someone else is not more complex than something like Terraria. Jordan7hm fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 03:17
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Toshimo posted:I keep going to board game meetups where everyone wants to play nothing but Resistance/Coup/Secret Hitler/etc., but all of them suck poo poo at lying and it just turns into 2 dudes quarterbacking and yelling over everyone while the quiet/shy folks just sit there and are miserable. Citadel's!!!!!
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Jan 18, 2017 03:59
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I just got my copy of The Gallerist and did my first solo playthrough. The box is huge, but it's mostly because it comes with an actual useful insert that cleanly fits everything into the box very nicely and elegantly, including a cut-out for the folded up board etc. I had been watching a lot of Youtube videos so I knew mostly how the flow of play worked, but once I got the board out and started playing, I realized that a lot of the finer details hadn't been clear to me, and I had to consult the rulebook a lot as I played. My super early impression was: "poo poo, this game is actually too fiddly, and it's way too difficult to figure out what I should be doing." There were a few moments throughout the game, however, where various parts of it clicked for me. One of the biggest click moments I had was at the very end of the game when I realized I was never going to win, namely that "getting collectors into your gallery" is a very key part of the engine building in this game. I didn't know how difficult it would be to get one of the artists to VIP in the time I had in the solo game. I didn't know how much time I had, and I didn't know how much fame increasing actions would ramp up throughout the course of play. It turns out I spread too thin on my fame boosting, and I think I actually forgot to check my VIP-in-gallery bonuses on one or two fame boost actions. At least in the solo game, I think it's really really important to put a VIP into your gallery early, because it's otherwise very expensive as far as reputation costs and action costs to crank up an artist's fame track. In a non-solo game, it wouldn't be so critical to make sure there is a celebrity, and multiple players using their actions to boost artists would probably make this less of a key point of gameplay, but in solo play you can't get any of the three attainable ranks without having at least one masterpiece. It feels very very difficult to do well in your first solo game. There is a lot to track, and you can immediately lose if you fail on one of three fronts. I was tunnel visioning on the international market and completely messed up my curator goals (in addition to not producing a celebrity). I lost on every single front. Next time I play I'm going to aim for the lowest rank victory and just try to get a better grip on the game. Once I got going, the game didn't feel fiddly anymore. All of the actions made sense, and a lot of the combo and synergy potential started to feel fun and challenging. I did not hit even the lowest rank for solo play, meaning I lost, but I'm planning to play again tomorrow or Thursday. I finished playing at Midnight and I have to wake up early tomorrow, but I immediately wanted to play again after finishing the game. I'm definitely looking forward to playing this mostly with two players. It feels a lot like a game that is easy to teach in person but harder to learn from reading rules. I'm pretty sure I could teach it relatively fast, but I'm also sure that the first time people play it will always be purely a learning game. This means I don't really want to try to force people to play it at meetups, as getting a game like this to the table twice in a short amount of time is super hard. I'd prefer to just get my wife to play it sometime so that she knows how to play. As difficult as the solo game was, I think playing 2-player would be only as hard as your opponent, and even if you are getting completely destroyed, it's still fun to figure out the game and try to optimize your engine and decisions. I'm kind of turned off from any game like this with more than 2-players, simply because it starts to take loving forever, and you often can't even track what everyone is doing. I think for this though, with the way kicked-out actions work, it could actually be pretty fun with 3-4 players. I don't see this getting played with more than two in my situation, but I'd be curious how it plays with 3 and 4 people. angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 06:44
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Toshimo posted:I keep going to board game meetups where everyone wants to play nothing but Resistance/Coup/Secret Hitler/etc., but all of them suck poo poo at lying and it just turns into 2 dudes quarterbacking and yelling over everyone while the quiet/shy folks just sit there and are miserable. Lifeboat or lifeboats. Two different games.
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Jan 18, 2017 06:47
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Chill la Chill posted:It's not the train theme specifically, it's just that those are the ones that are the lightest mechanics we have that aren't party games. I suggested Stone Age as an intro to worker placement but 2 of my friends said no way in hell were they trying that. Tokaido might actually work, but there's not much we have in light games territory that they haven't already played and can be used as a stepping stone to more advanced games. I'll see if they've played Dominion yet. Colt Express -> Space Alert?
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Jan 18, 2017 07:00
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Stone Age is awful, imho
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Jan 18, 2017 08:16
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angel opportunity posted:I think for this though, with the way kicked-out actions work, it could actually be pretty fun with 3-4 players. I don't see this getting played with more than two in my situation, but I'd be curious how it plays with 3 and 4 people. Much, much better. The kickout mechanic is the core of the game and it ensures there's virtually zero downtime. In a two player game you can dodge your opponent for a while, but in the four player game every action space is almost always occupied. You have to balance your influence and your assistants, and keep an eye on other people's influence so you can kick them out when they can't act. Lacerda games are clockworks and in my opinion they work best at the maximum player count.
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Jan 18, 2017 10:33
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Jordan7hm posted:Hah. Yeah I thought about that as I wrote it. I think I probably missed some plays but mostly it seems like the gotchas are people not understanding that spells aren't actions and stuff like that. For the intro scenario at least the game doesn't seem that crazy especially since all our fights were 1v1 and we only barely used units. Oh, that totally wasn't a knock against you. The game's got a ton of fiddly little rules and everyone gets stuff wrong in it aaaaalll the time. 'poo poo, I've been playing it wrong all this time?' became a catchphrase of my MK threads. It's super sweet that you got your kid engaged in it, and that's fantastic.
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Jan 18, 2017 11:09
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Stelas posted:Oh, that totally wasn't a knock against you. The game's got a ton of fiddly little rules and everyone gets stuff wrong in it aaaaalll the time. 'poo poo, I've been playing it wrong all this time?' became a catchphrase of my MK threads. It's super sweet that you got your kid engaged in it, and that's fantastic. Surprisingly no one messed up anything in the last game, AFAIK.
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Jan 18, 2017 11:24
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Xaris posted:I have Castles of Mad King Ludwig coming in the next few days since I couldn't resist how cheap it was on Amazon and pretty excited, been wanting to get it for awhile now and looks right up my alley. The base game of Castles stands on its own quite well. The expansion adds a whole bunch of sub-systems to scoring that add more routes to gaining points. The moats mean you need to plan a more compact castle if you buy into them and the secret passages can result in game winning combos of rooms. I don't think the expansion is mandatory at all but it can add a bit more spice to the base game. One notable thing is that Castles has a relatively long setup time and the expansion adds to it. You can get both, but play the base game a few times before adding the expansion stuff.
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Jan 18, 2017 12:23
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Miles O'Brian posted:Hi I have a board game date and need recommendations. Whats a good, 2-player board game without a huge amount of experience needed that plays inside a couple of hours? Tash-Kalar and Twilight Struggle recommended in the OP seem a little heavy. Tash-Kalar looks a little heavy but the full rules literally fit on one two-sided sheet of paper. It's a really easy game to teach, too - I whipped it out on Thursday to play with my brother in law after DnD and he had a solid grasp of the rules in like six minutes. You can try it free online at Board Game Arena to get a feel for it.
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Jan 18, 2017 15:00
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The way the Tash-Kalar rules are nested within themselves for the multiple different ways to play is dumb. It makes it seem more complicated and harder to reference.
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Jan 18, 2017 15:59
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Kore_Fero posted:The base game of Castles stands on its own quite well. The expansion adds a whole bunch of sub-systems to scoring that add more routes to gaining points. The moats mean you need to plan a more compact castle if you buy into them and the secret passages can result in game winning combos of rooms. I don't think the expansion is mandatory at all but it can add a bit more spice to the base game. One notable thing is that Castles has a relatively long setup time and the expansion adds to it. You can get both, but play the base game a few times before adding the expansion stuff. Or get the organiser from broken token for this puppy. Between it and Suburbia it shaves the time for setup and take down dramatically. I say this as someone who loves these games dearly and play them as often as I can. It's a lot of fun seeing your castle come together before your eyes and even though it's a point salad I love the theme. My only serious complaint is that the swan tokens in the expansion are so drat small that it's easy to forget to grab one when you add one of those pieces.
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Jan 18, 2017 16:03
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Fat Samurai posted:Surprisingly no one messed up anything in the last game, AFAIK. No, there were at least two mistakes, both mine. One was purely a reading comprehension failure on the Druidic Paths action card. The other was a subtle PVP mistake. (I avoided PVP with Tovak at least once because I thought you could push with ranged attacks.)
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Jan 18, 2017 16:18
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What are some really short but heavy solo games? Like 1/2 - 1 hour play time but still heavy? I already have the LOTR LCG, FoA, aFfO, Glass Road and Loyang which fit the play time requirement. Don't have Agricola but I may get it when the anniversery edition comes out. Anything I'm missing?
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Jan 18, 2017 16:29
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Finally got Mage Knight back after loaning it out for several months and I forgot how much I enjoy it. If you play a lot of CCGs, there's this moment every few games where you are looking at the board and at your hand and you get this itch in your brain saying, "I have everything I need to win this game right now, I just have to figure out HOW." Every turn of MK is like that. And even when you figure out how to clear the fight, you go back and say, "OK now can I do it without taking a wound (or without using X card)." It really is something else. I played a full solo conquest with Norowas last night. The game had fed me a ton of keeps the whole way, so I went in with a slightly weak deck but the last tile was White City with the keep on my side, so I cleared that keep and got to launch my final attack with a +5 hand size from keep bonus. Marched in and put the puzzle together and fell into bed at 1 am. Then standing in the shower this morning I realized I had used Lethal Chill on an enemy with ice resistance.  Also, Stelas, thanks for running your threads. I've never participated in one, but being able to go back and read them is probably the only way I'm able to play halfway correctly (brainfarts aside).
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Jan 18, 2017 16:30
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Selecta84 posted:What are some really short but heavy solo games? There's no such thing as "short and heavy". Heavy games require thought; thought requires time. For solo heavies, you're missing Roads and Boats. Good luck finding a copy.
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Jan 18, 2017 16:39
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Jedit posted:For solo heavies, you're missing Roads and Boats. Good luck finding a copy. I have the Colonists which I heard is kinda similar.
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Jan 18, 2017 16:41
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Selecta84 posted:What are some really short but heavy solo games? If you consider A Feast for Odin "short" you could get away with Mage Knight. It can be fast if you are playing solo, and there are faster scenarios to choose from.
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Jan 18, 2017 16:52
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FulsomFrank posted:It's a lot of fun seeing your castle come together before your eyes and even though it's a point salad I love the theme. Agreed. It's probably the most thematically satisfying point salad game.
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Jan 18, 2017 16:55
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Rutibex posted:If you consider A Feast for Odin "short" you could get away with Mage Knight. It can be fast if you are playing solo, and there are faster scenarios to choose from. I already own Mage Knight. Never really played the other scenarios but I'm a fan of the pre level up feature from Shades of Tezla and that makes the game a bit faster. And Feast for Odin takes me like 1 hour or so...
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Jan 18, 2017 16:58
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Selecta84 posted:What are some really short but heavy solo games? Space Alert?
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Jan 18, 2017 17:00
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Selecta84 posted:I already own Mage Knight. Never really played the other scenarios but I'm a fan of the pre level up feature from Shades of Tezla and that makes the game a bit faster. You could maybe get in a scenario of Comancheria in an hour, but it might be pushing it but you should buy it anyway because it's loving rad: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/159692/comancheria-rise-and-fall-comanche-empire quote:Comanchería is the second game in Joel Toppen's "First Nations" series. Like its predecessor, Navajo Wars, Comanchería is a solitaire game in which the player plays from the Native American tribe's point of view. in stock at CH and MM right now: http://www.boardgameprices.com/prices/comancheriarisefallcomancheempire
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Jan 18, 2017 17:02
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CaptainRightful posted:Space Alert? I never tried that one solo so maybe I should give it a try. Thanks T-Bone posted:You could maybe get in a scenario of Comancheria in an hour, but it might be pushing it but you should buy it anyway because it's loving rad: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/159692/comancheria-rise-and-fall-comanche-empire Hm... I'll have to check when that one comes to Germany.
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Jan 18, 2017 17:04
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CaptainRightful posted:Wir Sind Das Volk! is also sort of a Twilight Struggle-lite. It has a few mechanical differences: I wouldn't call it TS-lite, it felt marginally more complex to me. Still a great game tho
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Jan 18, 2017 17:11
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StashAugustine posted:I wouldn't call it TS-lite, it felt marginally more complex to me. Still a great game tho Maybe not lighter in that sense, but it seems to play much faster.
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Jan 18, 2017 17:16
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I already want to play Wir Sind Das Volk again, and I usually don't get into political/real-world themes at all. Was really solid - multiple paths of victory and you basically have to pursue all of them at once.
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Jan 18, 2017 17:18
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