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nonathlon posted:Thanks - I've had my eye on Rocky Mountain Men for a while, because it's apparently an evolution of Source of the Nile, a classic but an awkward fiddly one. Was the build hard? It was a little bit annoying mostly because US paper sizes are different to Australian paper sizes so I had to modify the documents myself. I'm a graphic designer so setting up documents for print is my bread and butter so depending on where you live your milage may vary. I also spent probably 2x the price of the game printing it myself, however with shipping costs it was still cheaper. If you live in the US I'd definitely just buy the game from the Cave Evil website. If you don't want to use the crayons you can always just buy a sheet of acrylic and some markers to use on top of the paper map. Magnetic North posted:As someone who read a few 1820-30s mountain man memoirs this year, this seems relevant to my interests. Honestly I'm not exactly sure what a folio game is, it's just how it is described on the site. I'm pretty sure yes, it doesn't come in a box, just a folder. Even with the production copy.you have to cut out the cards yourself. Some of the other Cave Evil games like Sea Evil and Psycho Raiders I believe come as part of a magazine with a bunch of comics and other bits and pieces. They are kind of like a cross between a zine and a boardgame. I haven't actually played the game yet, just built it and gave the rulebook a quick read. I think it's probably simpler than most wargames but be aware as far as I know Nate isn't known for writing super comprehensive rules. There are apparently lots of edge cases that you kind of have to make your own ruling on, although it's pretty easy to get in contact with him if you have questions. When I was looking at shipping to Australia he responded personally to my emails and there is a cave email discord he is active on as well as on BGG. You are only controlling one chit, so it's not like you are managing a while army or two. You can use up to a certain amount of movement points each turn to move around the map and explore new hexes. You draw a new card every time to determine the terrain, encounters, discoveries, whether rivers continue, branch or end etc. It's not the most streamlined set of rules but it also isn't a Phil Eklund game. I'm not a wargamer per se and I think it's not that hard to grok but I have taught myself how to play Pax Renaissance and tend to like heavier games in general. It's a pretty chilled out, freeform game. You can play 2 players but it is basically 2 person solitaire. You don't even take turns, you literally just play a solo game on the same map so if one player plays quick they could end up with more turns per season/year than the other so really it's a solo game you could play beside your significant other if they were also keen. Lots of things are resolved with a d6 roll on a table, it's more of a storytelling experience than a tactical sim. Lots of comments on BGG describe it as a fun, relaxing game you can play after work to unwind.
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Nov 20, 2021 15:06
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Picked up Anno 1800 and Tinners Trail in a gift exchange, going to try to get both to the table this weekend.
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Nov 20, 2021 15:32
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I bought Ticket To Ride and Wingspan to play with my family when they are around for Thanksgiving. My wife and I tried out Ticket to Ride today and had a lot of fun. Nice, simple, easy to learn game. Then we tried Wingspan… Holy poo poo. After like 30 minutes of trying to understand what the gently caress was going on we just put it away. There is absolutely zero chance of trying to get any average person to play that game. Is there any decent guide to learning how to play that game? The instructions are basically no help. Edit: I watched a YouTube video on it and it makes a little more sense now, but  at trying to get my 65 year old mother to learn how to play this.
RCarr fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 02:30
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RCarr posted:Is there any decent guide to learning how to play that game? The instructions are basically no help. Newer printings have a “Swift Start” expansion for new players. I believe Stegmeir sells these as promos too. Otherwise YouTube Rodney Smith is a boss.
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Nov 21, 2021 02:39
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djfooboo posted:Newer printings have a “Swift Start” expansion for new players. I believe Stegmeir sells these as promos too. Otherwise YouTube Rodney Smith is a boss. Yea we followed the steps on those Swift start cards but just being told what moves to make without explaining why or how you’re making them doesn’t really help. Watching 1 minute of a YouTube video helped a lot more than reading the instructions/ swift start for a half hour. It’s really poorly explained.
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Nov 21, 2021 02:42
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This'll probably show up in the worst tattoos thread, and isn't worthy of the good tattoos thread, but I've been wanting a board game tattoo for a long time and hadn't figured out what I wanted yet. The concept is the pride colored Geekway to the West logo, as I'm on the board and the convention means a lot to me. Surrounded by my board game group as meeples in each of their favorite colors. And on the opposite side of my wrist is the Sapphire City logo, who is publishing my first board game.  The Arch and stands about an inch tall on my wrist, so it's a tiny little thing and it makes me really happy.
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Nov 21, 2021 03:11
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Nah that ain't tasteless. 
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Nov 21, 2021 03:19
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That tattoo is rad as hell.
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Nov 21, 2021 03:37
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RCarr posted:I bought Ticket To Ride and Wingspan to play with my family when they are around for Thanksgiving. My wife and I tried out Ticket to Ride today and had a lot of fun. Nice, simple, easy to learn game. Generally when bringing a new game to the table, it's a good idea to learn the rules first, which may include finding tutorials on Youtube and sometimes doing a practice playthrough of a few turns on your own. If you're still confused by some of the finer points, BoardGameGeek usually has some useful information in the Rules forums for any game with any degree of popularity, often with answers directly from the designer. Some games like Ticket to Ride are simple enough that you won't have much trouble just playing it out of the box, but even then it's handy if someone at the table already knows it well enough that they can teach it without reading directly from the rulebook. But if you're not sure that what you're playing is a beginner game like TTR, or a mid-weight game like Wingspan, you should err on the side of caution and learn the rules before trying to introduce it to other players. Wingspan might be a hard sell to someone who's not used to playing modern board games, but its advantages in terms of accessibility are 1. The rules aren't all that complicated once you learn them, and 2. It has a cute theme and appealing artwork and components.
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Nov 21, 2021 03:52
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Frozen Peach posted:This'll probably show up in the worst tattoos thread, and isn't worthy of the good tattoos thread, but I've been wanting a board game tattoo for a long time and hadn't figured out what I wanted yet. Nah tatt owns. I've got something similar and line ring tatts own. Good job.
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Nov 21, 2021 04:30
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33 games deep at BGG.Con so far. May get another play or two in the morning but we may just chill out. Games of the show for me so far are: Gutenberg Meadow Ark Nova Hansa Teutonica Tang Garden Really was not impressed by: Space Race Kingdom Rush Rift in Time Merchants of the Dark Road Empyreal Spells and Steam had some really neat elements but was just too much for us in the end (the box is just insane huge).
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Nov 21, 2021 07:45
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Wingspan has 4 actions. Those actions are "put down a bird" and "do what it says on a row of your player mat" three times.
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Nov 21, 2021 11:09
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Frozen Peach posted:This'll probably show up in the worst tattoos thread, and isn't worthy of the good tattoos thread, but I've been wanting a board game tattoo for a long time and hadn't figured out what I wanted yet. That Sapphire City logo is really unfortunate. Did nobody tell them it looks like someone flipping the bird?
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Nov 21, 2021 11:38
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Questionable use of "exactly" there.
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Nov 21, 2021 11:39
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Mr. Squishy posted:Questionable use of "exactly" there. That's why I edited it out while you were posting.
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Nov 21, 2021 11:52
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Sign ups for TradGames Secret Santa close in like.. a day?Infinitum posted:
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Nov 21, 2021 11:54
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RCarr posted:Edit: I watched a YouTube video on it and it makes a little more sense now, but I imagine the video was Watch It Played's Wingspan tutorial. Rodney is certainly the gold standard in rules videos. The other two good places to check are Gaming Rules with Paul (here explaining Yokohama) and JonGetsGames with Jon (here explaining Hanamikoji). Jon's format has changed a few times, but commonly includes a more holistic approach to understanding a game including gameplay and some strategy instead of a straightforward recitation of rules. It's up to you what style you'd rather see. Even as an experienced gamer (tm) I find learning rules cold in front of others very difficult, and commonly intimidating or frustrating. Lots of rulebooks are just not laid out well, and even if they were everyone learns and processes information differently anyway so it might not work for you. Also, learning it with others around is taking away from gaming time. Before any game day, here are what I suggest: See if there is a youtube video about it. Even if it's not the three resources I put above, there are other ways. Sometimes a fan does it for fun (though this can include errors), sometimes corporations commission their own videos, such as this one from Queen Games explaining Alhambra, and some 'actual play' videos will include a rules explanation. Finally, some reviewers include cursory descriptions of rules, but I'd use that only as a last resort because they common gloss over large parts of it. Whatever video you find, if you think players would be amenable, you can forward them the link too, but I admit, every time I do this, absolutely no one has watched the link. Read the rulebook ahead of time. The first time you read it should probably not be in front of others. Give yourself the time to try and absorb the information. In addition, when you do this, I suggest having the pieces at hand if you can. Then you can manipulate them and set things up, which can help increase your understanding. It may reference pieces or types of cards or something that is just not clear without handling them physically. Most good rulebooks will have an image that shows components and setup if you can't handle the pieces while reading (you're reading the rulebook in bed or something). If there are questions, type "game name rule question" into your favorite search engine. Especially for popular games, in all probability someone has asked the question before on Reddit or BGG, and this is the easiest way to find it. Often times the game's designer, developer or publisher will answer authoritatively and other times it's just fans which can have an error, but at least on these forums someone can reply to try and correct the error. If possible, try to experience the game before explaining the game. There are several safe ways to do this. The easiest way would be to find an 'actual play' board game product, and there are some out there. The most famous being the defunct Tabletop but that won't include anything in the last 5 years. The next easiest way is to be taught by someone who already knows the game or to teach the game to experienced gamers. They will have the easiest time getting it and will find holes in your explanation. For a high-tech solution for learning certain games, you can also play them online. BoardGameArena is a free(ish) website with many licensed board game implementations played right in your browser. Unlike many other similar virtual board gaming products like Tabletopia or Tabletop Simulator, it includes rules enforcement so it does not rely on you to know everything; the computer will prevent you from cheating. If that's available, you could play it and learn that way. Also, many popular games have full-on apps, that are essentially video games with the exact same rules. These include Ticket To Ride, Through The Ages, Root, Sagrada, and Concordia. Of course, software development costs money so these are not free, and it would suck to buy a game twice (physical and digital) and then realize you don't like it. But you can learn games from them; it's how I learned Through The Ages, which is the pinnacle of board game app achievement. Finally, you could set up and work through a few turns by yourself, playing as each player and trying to follow along with the rules. Some games actually include solo rules now, but they are still in the minority. Mr. Squishy posted:Wingspan has 4 actions. Those actions are "put down a bird" and "do what it says on a row of your player mat" three times. Finally, goons will say this type of thing sometimes. Ignore them. Game complexity is a logarithmic scale, and learning more games will make learning new games easier and easier. That's a good thing, but the problem is that some gamers either forgot how hard it is to learn at the start, possibly because they have been playing games since they were literally children and have simply forgotten how hard it was to start. Even if Wingspan is simple compared to Terra Mystica or 1830, it is still massively more complicated than Coup or Love Letter. Also, remember that while board games are for everyone, not every game is for everyone. It's possible that Wingspan is beyond your non-gaming mother, and that's okay. If she has interest and motivation to learn, that's wonderful, and if not there are lots of great simpler games.
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Nov 21, 2021 12:26
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They're all wrong. Wingspan is a game about turning birds into egg making GBS threads machine guns.
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Nov 21, 2021 12:28
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I'm at the point now where I won't teach someone a game I haven't learned beforehand, and if I sit down to play and the game owner is clearly opening the box for the first time I'll just excuse myself. Had too many bad experiences both ways round unfortunately.
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Nov 21, 2021 12:36
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The OP should tell their ma to put down a cube in one of the four spaces, then watch them like a hawk to see they don't cheat or forget to profit from their brown birds. Mas don't need to know the specific mechanics of the bird tower.MikeCrotch posted:I'm at the point now where I won't teach someone a game I haven't learned beforehand, and if I sit down to play and the game owner is clearly opening the box for the first time I'll just excuse myself. Had too many bad experiences both ways round unfortunately. Do people actually sit down and watch people reading the rulebook? horrible.
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Nov 21, 2021 12:45
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Mr. Squishy posted:Do people actually sit down and watch people reading the rulebook? horrible. I've also had a different group dump a game on me with a "you play games, tell us the rules" kind of deal. Luckily they've never been that complicated. It makes me a bit grumpy but that is partly because I always over prepare for the teach. I initially hoped they'd see the difference and try to meet me in the middle but it looks like new games being learnt at the table is the price I pay for a semi reliable local games group.
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Nov 21, 2021 13:00
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MikeCrotch posted:I'm at the point now where I won't teach someone a game I haven't learned beforehand, and if I sit down to play and the game owner is clearly opening the box for the first time I'll just excuse myself. Had too many bad experiences both ways round unfortunately. I've had this happen before with a gaming friend who I regularly play with - it was just the first time we were at their house and they were doing the teach. It just about worked, but only be because all the players were experienced at complex games in general and the board iconography was pretty clear. It still took me several minutes to really appreciate what the hell was happening. It was that far out of left field for our group. The game was Crystal Palace, which I still think is decent despite the shaky start I had with it.
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Nov 21, 2021 13:05
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Teach on the day is fine, but I try and ask my players to watch a how to play vid (If I can find one) beforehand so the teach is less time consuming on the day. For example for Unfathomable I made sure to read the manual + Watch It Played 45min tutorial video so I was fully prepped. My players rocked up, and while we were eating lunch we watched a shorter 15min video by BoardGameNinja as a refresher. I'd linked both videos earlier in the week for people to watch at their leisure. By the time lunch was done the teach was brought down to about 5-10min to make players aware of the more important key concepts, and by the end of the first few rounds everybody had a pretty good grasp of things. God I couldn't imagine trying to unboxing a game and playing without reading for big games like that.
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Nov 21, 2021 13:21
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Infinitum posted:
Yeah, for clarity, it's this bit I have an issue with. You need to at least learn the rules yourself beforehand if you're going to be teaching.
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Nov 21, 2021 13:40
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Oh absolutely. The teach on the day is fine, the first time you look the rules being with a table full of people waiting for you is not. Especially for Mansions of Madness and Gloomhaven.
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Nov 21, 2021 13:50
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18West is fun, but I have no idea how the whole NPR/GNR northern route should work as folks have failed with it every time. I won last night by parring the KPAC at $100, destinating with the KPAC OR1.1, and buying/running two 2Ts/eventually two 3Ts. Having 8 shares pay in to the company for a while was nice, even if I wasn't paying enough to move my stock price for a bit. Used a sad second granger to pull out a 3T in time for the 5Ts and let it bottom out, pretty painless 4D to go with the 5T eventually. e: the KPAC and ATSF should probably be bid up in most games, they're very strong land grant companies and me being allowed to start a granger with the land grant SR1 was probably a mistake on other folks' part. Bellmaker fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 14:31
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Wingspan is a weird one because it's a very simple game at heart but the rules in the book are really unclear like how much birbs cost and where do your tokens go exactly for some actions. Watching a rules video makes it very clear. I think Cole Wehrles games are like this, the rule books are hard to follow but once you know you're good.
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Nov 21, 2021 15:24
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Mr. Squishy posted:Do people actually sit down and watch people reading the rulebook? horrible. Just happened to a nice fellow I met the other day. Someone (who unsurprisingly turned out to be kind of rude) was trying to gather folks for a game and when they all sat down he said “ok, let me finish reading the rules now.” Kiranamos fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 16:35
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Aramoro posted:I think Cole Wehrles games are like this, the rule books are hard to follow but once you know you're good. Seconded. The Learn to Play guides that come with Root + Expansions are crucial, but if you tried to learn Root from reading the rules with no videos you'd be screwed. Definitely found the same thing with Pamir 2E- I grokked maybe 65% of the rules from the rulebook but had to watch some videos to kind of get the "flow" of things, as it were.
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Nov 21, 2021 17:02
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Redundant posted:Oh absolutely. The teach on the day is fine, the first time you look the rules being with a table full of people waiting for you is not. Especially for Mansions of Madness and Gloomhaven. Depends on the game I find, I just did that with Furnace the other day and had no issues. You're insane if you're doing that with Gloomhaven or Through the Ages or whatever
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Nov 21, 2021 18:31
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My group always just unboxes and learns how to play on the same day, we did that with oath and it worked just fine. Never ever do this to a non-boardgamer though
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Nov 21, 2021 19:07
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Aramoro posted:Wingspan is a weird one because it's a very simple game at heart but the rules in the book are really unclear like how much birbs cost and where do your tokens go exactly for some actions. I don't recollect Wingspan being complex ... but then again someone taught it to me. I didn't have to figure it out. Wehrle reminds me of something once said to me - rulebooks are used for learning the game and as a reference once you broadly know the game and just need to check something. Some rulebooks are good at one, some at the other. Some at neither.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:14
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I think the rule book for Feast for Odin is the best I've seen lately. So few rulebooks provide true context and that one did. The examples aren't really context even though apparently rules writers think they are, as they don't show in general the example interacting with the rest of the game. That's the big thing I try to do with my teaches, is show people how x relates to y and z.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:17
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Magnetic North posted:Finally, goons will say this type of thing sometimes. Ignore them. Game complexity is a logarithmic scale, and learning more games will make learning new games easier and easier. That's a good thing, but the problem is that some gamers either forgot how hard it is to learn at the start, possibly because they have been playing games since they were literally children and have simply forgotten how hard it was to start. Even if Wingspan is simple compared to Terra Mystica or 1830, it is still massively more complicated than Coup or Love Letter. Agreed. Boardgamers are terrible at judging how apparently complex games are to non-enthusiasts. If you've played a lot, you can get a long way by just understanding that a new game uses this mechanic and is just like that game but with a rondel and scores like this other game, and figure the rest out as it goes along. In contrast , I recently saw a newcomer ask if a game was complicated and get the answer "it's real simple, just a deckbuilder with elements of worker placement".
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Nov 21, 2021 19:23
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The one game that I think is pretty genuinely easy to teach to non-gamers is Cryptid, it's so simple and visual and every player starts the game only really needing to track one piece of information. It's not like it builds a ton on a bunch of hobbyist games from the past two decades that it can lean on, I usually say "it's a bit like Clue if everyone had a helicopter and was looking for Bigfoot" and go from there.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:54
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please knock Mom! posted:My group always just unboxes and learns how to play on the same day, we did that with oath and it worked just fine. Never ever do this to a non-boardgamer though Yeah, (often) same.
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Nov 21, 2021 20:21
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nonathlon posted:Agreed. Boardgamers are terrible at judging how apparently complex games are to non-enthusiasts. If you've played a lot, you can get a long way by just understanding that a new game uses this mechanic and is just like that game but with a rondel and scores like this other game, and figure the rest out as it goes along. In contrast , I recently saw a newcomer ask if a game was complicated and get the answer "it's real simple, just a deckbuilder with elements of worker placement". This is totally true. Years ago, I was the director of gaming at a local geek convention. This information got back to my team at work, which consisted of about 25 people, mostly non-gamers. We did quarterly team outings, so they asked if I'd be willing to organize a team board game day. Knowing that most of them had no exposure to tabletop games beyond Monopoly or Uno, I went with more party-ish games. I settled on Time's Up, Sushi Go!, and The Resistance. I figured The Resistance would be too rules-heavy for the majority, but that's actually the one that people gravitated to and had the most fun with, while several complained that Sushi Go had "too many rules to remember". And a couple of tables stopped after the first round of Time's Up to play The Resistance again. The moral being that you can't predict what people can handle or will have the patience for, because you're already biased from your years of gaming. WhiteHowler fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 20:53
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nonathlon posted:I don't recollect Wingspan being complex ... but then again someone taught it to me. I didn't have to figure it out. That's what I'm saying, the game is not complicated, but the rules are poorly laid out and explained in the book.
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Nov 21, 2021 21:01
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nonathlon posted:Wehrle reminds me of something once said to me - rulebooks are used for learning the game and as a reference once you broadly know the game and just need to check something. Some rulebooks are good at one, some at the other. Some at neither. Yea, the two things are too divergent to be doable in a single document. I personally prefer for the rulebook to be purely for reference with some kind of separate learning guide if necessary.
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Nov 21, 2021 21:11
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nonathlon posted:"it's real simple, just a deckbuilder with elements of worker placement". I taught Dune Imperium just the other day and it's definitely one of those second order games where you take a bunch of proven mechanics and just smush em together. Very easy to teach to anyone who has played games for awhile, painful for anyone who hasn't. taser rates posted:Yea, the two things are too divergent to be doable in a single document. I personally prefer for the rulebook to be purely for reference with some kind of separate learning guide if necessary. The recent trend of learn to play guides accompanying a very technical rulebook is great. I feel like Vlaada was the first one to do it more mainstream in Galaxy Trucker/Space Alert, Root definitely popularized it more. I'm sure other games had dual manuals earlier, but that's the first one I remember. I also like when there are stages of rules like Tash-Kalar where you get enough rules to play a basic game and then keep adding in mechanics as you master the initial stuff. I was thinking about bringing Pax Pam 2e to game night the other night, but I knew I'd have to teach it and it sorta turned me off of doing it. It reminded me of just flatly refusing to play Race for the Galaxy like 10 years ago, even though I love the game, because I hated teaching all the symbology.
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Nov 21, 2021 21:42
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