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I seem to be in the minority on this but I greatly prefer the old art for Bus. it's definitely best with 3, but 4 seems playable from the one time I've done it. The biggest issue with high player counts is that time stopping becomes more of an actual thing that people do as opposed to a threat that needs to be managed by everyone collectively.
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Nov 11, 2019 18:33
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CommonShore posted:Firefly is ok if you have a group which mostly knows how to play and doesn't suffer from AP. When that's the case you can often do much of your turn during other people's turns and it speeds up quite a bit. There are some expansions which increase player interactivity as well. The game improves immensely when it is expanded, and I feel it's really the best-in-class "draw cards, get equipment, race to the finish" genre of game, at least so far as I've seen. My conclusion with Firefly is the same, but my analysis of it is a lot less friendly. It's not even got a slight semblance of balance, and it seemed absolutely desperate to cram every possible reference to the show in even when it doesn't make sense. Success or failure are entirely arbitrary. If you want to spend two hours (at a favourable pace) shooting the poo poo with your friends in the 'verse, you could do WORSE i suppose, but you'd be better off just... watching the show for two hours, whilst playing a different game, or no game at all.
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Nov 11, 2019 18:40
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I went by the thrift shops again today and found something kind of interesting. After a bit of research I don't know if it was a good find or not? I'm going to have to play this one before I make my judgement. Anyway, for for $3.99 I found what looked like a modern designer game. Something called "Mwahahaha!" and published by WhiteWolf. The box was quite heavy, so I knew it had a lot of content. When I got it home and checked inside everything was there. In fact it was clear this game had never even been played, the dice were in heat seal baggies and a bunch of the components weren't even punched. It even had the "new boardgame smell" which is impressive for a game published in 2008:  https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33581/mwahahaha Looking this game up on BGG it seems to have a middle of the road rating. It seems to be an attempt at a "euro" game, but with lots of other systems bolted on top. You are gathering resources and building a resources gathering tableau like Race for the Galaxy, but there are no victory points. The winner of the game is the one who completes their Doomsday device first, regardless of what happened before hand. It also has a lot more player interaction than a euro game, players can trade resources freely and use cards/minions to attack each other directly. I honestly don't know what to make of it. I will have to give it a try I guess? It has really good production values and a lot of cards, so it has that going for it. Though some of the playable Mad Scientists were a bit uh problematic..... 
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Nov 11, 2019 19:07
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thespaceinvader posted:My conclusion with Firefly is the same, but my analysis of it is a lot less friendly. I have seen people setting up Firefly when I got to the pub at 6pm and still be playing the same game at closing time, without being close to finishing it, because they want to play at being Captain Carboard rather than actually, y'know, play a game.
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Nov 11, 2019 19:27
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thespaceinvader posted:My conclusion with Firefly is the same, but my analysis of it is a lot less friendly. Imo balance isn't a factor in games in that genre. If you pick up a game like Talisman or Firefly or whatever hoping for balance, you're picking up the wrong box. It's like saying "I like 18xx but I don't like the math and I wish there was more randomness involved." Think about it - if you build a deck of cards, there intrinsically needs to be better or worse cards, even if it's just situationally better vs situationally worse. If not, why have a deck of cards? Now if that deck of cards is items or whatever, you'll have a range of quality, and so it's intrinsically imbalanced. The game is about seeing who is lucky enough to have the imbalance swing in their favour. Firefly has an additional layer where there are a few choices and approaches about mitigating those swings. If you have that in mind you're less likely to have a frustrating time with the game, but that comes back to my "I'll never choose that game but I won't object" point.
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Nov 11, 2019 20:20
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Jedit posted:I have seen people setting up Firefly when I got to the pub at 6pm and still be playing the same game at closing time, without being close to finishing it, because they want to play at being Captain Carboard rather than actually, y'know, play a game. It usually takes us like 3h to play a game of it, but that's because we never lose sight of actually trying to finish the mission.
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Nov 11, 2019 20:21
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"balance is pointless if there's a deck of cards involved" is a hell of a take
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Nov 11, 2019 20:36
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Are we going to have to bring up the Vlaada conversation about Robinson Crusoe again? Because there's a world of a difference between "game with single deck random card draw" and "Candyland with generic fantasy/Firefly references". Through the Ages and Flow of History do a good job of caring about balance despite both relying on card draws from massive decks. Terraforming Mars also makes some attempt at balance with it's massive card draw.
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Nov 11, 2019 20:54
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Straight White Shark posted:"balance is pointless if there's a deck of cards involved" is a hell of a take At least for the "have adventure get stuff from a randomized deck" genre I mean. It's always going to be a range of more or less useful cards. Some of those cards are going to be better than the others. That's imbalance.
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Nov 11, 2019 20:57
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CommonShore posted:At least for the "have adventure get stuff from a randomized deck" genre I mean. It's always going to be a range of more or less useful cards. Some of those cards are going to be better than the others. That's imbalance. That argument applies just as well to every other game that features a randomized deck, though. There's definitely a sub-genre of "pull random encounters/loot" adventure game that tends towards imbalanced designs, but that's not so much a mechanical feature so much as it is a matter of taste for the consumer segment that it draws.
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Nov 11, 2019 21:15
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Rutibex posted:I went by the thrift shops again today and found something kind of interesting. After a bit of research I don't know if it was a good find or not? I'm going to have to play this one before I make my judgement. Anyway, for for $3.99 I found what looked like a modern designer game. Something called "Mwahahaha!" and published by WhiteWolf. The box was quite heavy, so I knew it had a lot of content. When I got it home and checked inside everything was there. In fact it was clear this game had never even been played, the dice were in heat seal baggies and a bunch of the components weren't even punched. It even had the "new boardgame smell" which is impressive for a game published in 2008: I got this years ago as a gift and still haven't played it. At the time I was relatively new to modern board games so it looked a little overly complex. Maybe I'll have to give it a try one of these days.
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Nov 11, 2019 21:49
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Firefly is a terrible, terrible game.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:03
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FulsomFrank posted:
It is actually that bad. The futurists are like 50% higher scoring than the traders. However because score distributions are roughly normal curves, that means the win rate for the futurists that you'd expect is a lot more than 60-40 in a head to head matchup. The stats dude pointed out that their expected win rate is 33% and their achieved win rate is 60%, and that's vs the field. Basically the futurists are extremely OP: but a total of 8 of the factions are woefully over or underpowered.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:15
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Morpheus posted:Only issue I had was that some of the stray cats were way more useful than others (one just hoovered up all extra good you had and spit out a bunch of VP, making it more useful to get food rather than cats after that) Yeah when you see cow or one of the other bombier cats on the adoption row you have to almost ignore everything else when you see a lost cat poster because you want to be the one that holds a food sink. Likewise if you see the cat that gives points for toys you want to try and adopt early so you have time to implement the strategy. Now that we play this more regularly at home we’ll hold aside the three stray cats from each game so they don’t get reused until next time, keeps the games a little more interesting then if you have moonbeam on the stray cats three games in a row.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:17
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I give a lot more leeway to historical games that have a lot of randomness because of the unexpected nature of, well, history. With a crafted setting, you can ask why is the setting this or that way? Arguably, you could fall back to the same excuses of history being random af, but unlike history which has weird variables you don’t know, a setting has decisions made by someone somewhere. There’s also the element of doing the best with what you’ve been given, a skill that can be appreciated when you’re trying to portray a given general or leader’s role. Negotiate here or attack there out of desperation. The history is there as to why those circumstances came to be with a well-designed consim. With a game based on a property that doesn’t have that background or history, the link is more tenuous.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:17
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golden bubble posted:Are we going to have to bring up the Vlaada conversation about Robinson Crusoe again? The holidays are a time for tradition.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:30
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CommonShore posted:It usually takes us like 3h to play a game of it, but that's because we never lose sight of actually trying to finish the mission. You have a much higher tolerance for “experience generator games” than most of the thread regulars. 3 hours for a game like this is just crazy.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:31
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Funzo posted:I got this years ago as a gift and still haven't played it. At the time I was relatively new to modern board games so it looked a little overly complex. Maybe I'll have to give it a try one of these days. It seems like it would be best with 4-5 people, so that there is room for alliances/betrayal etc. I really don't know what to make of it. It does seem to have a lot of moving parts, and it doesn't quite add up to anything I am usually familiar with. Like a cross between Race for the Galaxy, Munchkin, Magic the Gathering, and Risk?  I really is the worst possible name for a boardgame in the era of google though, searching for "Mwahahaha!" is a nightmare.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:36
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Memnaelar posted:The holidays are a time for tradition. See I can actually get behind Robinson Crusoe in this realm. Every random draw in Firefly resolves when drawn so if you don’t have the parts, or crew or gear ahead of time it’s a too bad so sad situation. At least with Robinson Crusoe when you get an event card from one of the action decks you know what bad things will be happening in 1-N turns and at least try to mitigate without already knowing all the cards in the game The ability to react to bad draws without having seen all the cards in previous plays is way more engaging for me. I’ll lose both games regardless but at least one feels like I caused the trouble that killed me
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Nov 11, 2019 22:38
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Firefly is awful. It's long, boring, non-interactive and just a pick up and deliver. Skill checks based on dice are bad. I noped our off the demo at GenCon several years ago after the 3rd hour of the unguided scenario where no one was close to winning. I will never play it again and will greatly discourage anyone else from doing so as well.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:44
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Crackbone posted:You have a much higher tolerance for “experience generator games” than most of the thread regulars. 3 hours for a game like this is just crazy. There’s more people who like experience generators than you think. It’s just that half the time it’s more appropriate to post about them in the wargame thread. Oh wait we do post a lot about John Company and Here I Stand here. Successors is also good. The KS should mean more people will be playing it.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:49
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pakman posted:Firefly is awful. It's long, boring, non-interactive and just a pick up and deliver. What about the game though? 
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Nov 11, 2019 22:56
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I once played firefly while I was staying with some friends. Another guy they knew came over who I'd played games with a few times before but we really barely knew each other. All I remember is that at some points you can move the Reavers around and if things line up exactly right you can very occasionally move them onto your opponents, in about the only bit of player interaction in the whole game. Anyway, I had the opportunity to move the Reavers onto this guys ship so of course I did so. After a few minutes of stunned silence he said "oh, I remember you now".
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Nov 11, 2019 23:07
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Fellis posted:What about the game though? damnit i was about to make that joke
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Nov 11, 2019 23:23
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OrthoTrot posted:Anyway, I had the opportunity to move the Reavers onto this guys ship so of course I did so. After a few minutes of stunned silence he said "oh, I remember you now". The fun part about joining a new gaming group is to see how fast you get this reputation. I think in my current group it was about 3-4 months, but I may have toned it down since it's the only decent group in the area
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Nov 11, 2019 23:27
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I feel like making up new, plain English names for game mechanics I like. Here are some:
Here's some that don't gel super well with me:
Anyone got any good suggestions of their own?
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Nov 11, 2019 23:28
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The Eyes Have It posted:I feel like making up new, plain English names for game mechanics I like. Here are some: My two favorite 18xx mechanics are: Skillful Handling of Intricate Timings Predicting Opponents, Short Term
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Nov 11, 2019 23:34
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The Eyes Have It posted:I feel like making up new, plain English names for game mechanics I like. Here are some: I don't have any equivalent phrases but while I'm still very thinly and cautiously defending Firefly this is exactly the way it needs to be played for it not to suck. I'm curious though - in this broad genre of "move around a map collect stuff turn cards have a thematic adventure" game, is there one that's actually A Good Game in the way that this thread's zeitgeist generally defines good games? Is there one that's less bad than Firefly?
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Nov 11, 2019 23:34
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CommonShore posted:I don't have any equivalent phrases but while I'm still very thinly and cautiously defending Firefly this is exactly the way it needs to be played for it not to suck. Mage Knight is what happens when you put a serious mechanical spin on that genre. It doesn't really fit the same niche anymore though since one of the few virtues of that sort of game is that they have theoretically quick turns and low barrier to entry.
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Nov 11, 2019 23:41
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CommonShore posted:I don't have any equivalent phrases but while I'm still very thinly and cautiously defending Firefly this is exactly the way it needs to be played for it not to suck. Merchant of Venus is where the whole game came from.
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Nov 11, 2019 23:55
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CommonShore posted:I'm curious though - in this broad genre of "move around a map collect stuff turn cards have a thematic adventure" game, is there one that's actually A Good Game in the way that this thread's zeitgeist generally defines good games? Is there one that's less bad than Firefly? Maximum Apocalypse isn't great, but it's definitely a lot more entertaining than Firefly.
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Nov 11, 2019 23:58
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Fellis posted:Skillful Handling of Intricate Timings I like this one, kind of a budgeting angle mixed with the feeling from meshing (metaphorical) gears just right to pull something off.
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Nov 11, 2019 23:58
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Fellis posted:My two favorite 18xx mechanics are: Stock and Market Evaluation Operating Phase
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Nov 12, 2019 00:08
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The Eyes Have It posted:I like this one, kind of a budgeting angle mixed with the feeling from meshing (metaphorical) gears just right to pull something off. oh drat i was just trying to spell poo poo POST
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Nov 12, 2019 00:22
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Summarizes the 18xx genre very well.
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Nov 12, 2019 00:23
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CommonShore posted:Imo balance isn't a factor in games in that genre. If you pick up a game like Talisman or Firefly or whatever hoping for balance, you're picking up the wrong box. It's like saying "I like 18xx but I don't like the math and I wish there was more randomness involved." Plenty of card games have elements of skill in them. Firefly does not. Which is fine, like I said, if you want the experience generator... experience... but it's not if you want a game. I'd go so far as to say that Firefly doesn't really qualify as a game at all, any more than say snakes and ladders does. It's just as arbitrary and random and time-wasting. I honestly don't think I'd ever play it again, because as noted, I'd prefer to spend the time watching the show, if I wanted a Firefly experience, or playing literally anything else.
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Nov 12, 2019 00:27
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These terms should be just one long German word.
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Nov 12, 2019 00:34
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CommonShore posted:I'm curious though - in this broad genre of "move around a map collect stuff turn cards have a thematic adventure" game, is there one that's actually A Good Game in the way that this thread's zeitgeist generally defines good games? Is there one that's less bad than Firefly? Eldritch Horror is pretty good for random thematic events and giving you some control over your fate. I haven't played it, but I hear the Arkham Horror card game is pretty well regarded if you're okay with 2-player.
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Nov 12, 2019 01:19
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Arkham Horror LCG seats 1-4, what do you mean?
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Nov 12, 2019 01:22
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The Eyes Have It posted:
I too enjoy splotter games.
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Nov 12, 2019 01:35
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