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Thanks for the impressions on Oath. I bought it for a good price recently but I'm sweating at the thought of teaching this ungainly thing to my crew of two other people who are usually very down to play Root. Goodwill is the scarcest resource of all in board games, and I don't have much to spend with these folks. I'm surprised at how hard it is to wrap my own mind around Oath. As Anonymous Robot pointed out, particularly as it pertains to the concept of campaigns, there's a good deal of abstraction in this game that isn't present in the Root design where you have to apply a bit of editorializing and imagination to understand exactly what something is (the banners come to mind as well). I was hoping that some of the concepts from Root would carry over as helpful footholds for new players, but there doesn't seem to much of that all (whereas Pax Pamir 2E feels like such a natural extension of Cole's design ethos from Root). Making matters more difficult, you can't easily play the game as an individual playing multiple roles (if for no other reason than resetting the deck is a pain), which I find is the easiest way for me to learn the game before trying to inflict it on others. This one may just stay on the shelf 
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Feb 13, 2023 15:58
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Cole is definitely one of those designers whose games I respect more than I actually like, though I'm still a fan of original Pax Pamir and to a lesser extent the remake.
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Feb 13, 2023 16:41
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I have Gate coming in tomorrow, whether I enjoy it will determine if I buy Desolate and his other works, but it looks good from youtube!
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Feb 13, 2023 17:16
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I always thought that Vast looked like a really intriguing, frequently unfun trainwreck.
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Feb 13, 2023 17:27
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More like Asst. But that's not a Cole game. That's all Leder I think. Also it's not terrible, just not great and there are many games I would play instead. E: Leder and David Sommerville. In any case that game predates Cole joininh Ledergames
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Feb 13, 2023 18:15
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CODChimera posted:nice, gonna watch his entire channel tomorrow He’s the best. Edit: NSFW
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Feb 13, 2023 18:22
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Interesting anecdote about Oath. There's a curated list on BGG that is all "games that are not quite like anything else" which is something I and some others are interested in. The vast majority of games on that list are a) older OOP games from the days before people all agreed on what games should play like, and/or b) borderline outsider art  . These games are obviously more difficult to learn and teach because they don't share the same DNA (for lack of a better term) as their brethren and as a result tend to defy expectations people didn't know they had.It says something that Oath, which was at the time a new off-the-shelf release in the board game world, made it into that list because it really is just not like anything else out there.
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Feb 13, 2023 18:23
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Oath is when the Leder team saw the Cones of Dunshire and said "Bet." There is in fact an alchemist, and he can be in the Hinterlands.
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Feb 13, 2023 19:07
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Oath is for me the prime example of "oh, once you get it, it's really quite simple!" It honestly is, but it just takes some loving work to get there.
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Feb 13, 2023 19:24
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The biggest draw in Oath is unpacking the world deck, and seeing how all these weird abilities might be leveraged to do cool crazy things.
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Feb 13, 2023 21:29
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We enjoy Oath but drat if I don't have to explain how a campaign works every time someone wants to do one and we still mess things up all the time, but it doesn't get in the way of our games.
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Feb 13, 2023 23:26
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Been having fun with Frosthaven, but goddamn, some board games are clearly manufactured in wildly different humidities or whatever than exists where I live. I haven't had cardboard this badly warped since Irish Gauge (and that's a board I literally cannot fit back into its box).
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Feb 14, 2023 00:45
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I usually keep my game nights to 4 people, but it looks like I will need to accommodate 6 next weekend. How much of a mistake would it be to play John Company 2E at that number?
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Feb 14, 2023 03:00
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FulsomFrank posted:The game rewards repeated plays with a steady group and IN MY OPINION just isn't worth playing that much compared to other stuff. Also, someone always has a new game they want to play too so good luck doing just a simple, quick (~1.5hr) warm up play of it. I think Oath will be really fun to play with my kids in about five years, so I'm keeping my eyes out for a cheap copy.
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Feb 14, 2023 04:19
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Megasabin posted:I usually keep my game nights to 4 people, but it looks like I will need to accommodate 6 next weekend. How much of a mistake would it be to play John Company 2E at that number? I think John is actually better at larger numbers. The individual turns won't be too much longer, as most of that is dictated by the offices which don't change. There will probably be more and longer negotiations, but having more players means that you're incentivised to specialise, so not everyone will be involved in every discussion. Maybe don't play with deregulation though, as that could definitely bog things down.
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Feb 14, 2023 05:04
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I would say that totally depends on the players. JoCo is a bit much to spring on someone with a newfound or passing interest in boardgames, or anyone who doesn't like negotiations.
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Feb 14, 2023 10:22
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Anonymous Robot posted:I always thought that Vast looked like a really intriguing, frequently unfun trainwreck. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I fuckin' LOVE asymmetry, is the number one thing I look for, so was alllll over Vast. The trouble is, only one of the roles is actually 'good'. The way it works is, the Knight does what you think you're gonna do when you look at the game. It 'should' be the basic one that you give to a newcomer. Except it has this resource, Grit, that determines how many things they can do, but it's one of those where it's a stat, not a resource, and so that can be kind of confusing (because you have to keep track of how much you've used in a turn, without actually 'spending' or changing anything). The Knight wants to slay the dragon. The Dragon is the one everyone wants to be at first, because it's a dragon, but the dragon walks around 'under' the board to begin with, gathering power. It very much doesn't feel like it's under the board. Weirdly, the dragon, does not want to slay the Knight. But your players will. They can attack the Knight to impede them, and they will. But what they should be doing is trying to first of all 'wake up' (which gets them above ground') and then escape the Cave. They can eat Goblins on the way to power up. So, the Dragon is actually this weird weakling (because it's not really in the game) to begin with, that get's really powerful! And once it's powerful it can... run away? The Goblins move in the spaces between spaces, if ever they go on regular spaces (that Knight uses) it takes them a 'wound' to do so. They want to amass forces by doing weird poo poo, and attack and kill the Knight. They're odd, they're like Goblins, where they plink and scratch and harry, constantly dying in the process. To me, they're really the only home run, because you play them how you expect to play them, they're about the level of weirdness and difficulty that you're expecting, and they're just actually fun to play as. Finally (Ehhhh) the CAVE. The Cave player builds the level as you go, and then has a literal bag of tricks that they can use to level the playing field, again, both figuratively and literally; their goal is to build the cave big enough that it starts collapsing, then collapse it down. This will always happen on your first few games of Vast. In those first games, whoever it was wanted to be the Cave, for whatever reason they wanted to be the Cave, will have just the BEST time. They're essentially playing as a DM that can win. The Cave was why I bought the game, but the third game in, I realised, the Cave doesn't really... work. I mean, not really. You're supposed to keep things level for the other players, because you don't want any of them to win, so whoever's in the lead, you're trying to slap them down. And then, obviously, that will give an advantage to the one trying to kill them, so you need to slap 'them' down, and so on. It's cute, and it does what it says on the tin, but it means in practice, you just default win if ALL the other players don't play well. If any 'one' of them is screwing the pooch, you just poo poo on their adversaries repeatedly, and it's a free ride. If they are all playing well, you don't win. I mean it's fine, it's whatever, really. It just didn't feel like a 'deep' (har har) enough role. And actually, that's kind of true of all of them. None of them feel like an entire game in themselves (apart from the Goblins), they all sort of felt like cogs in a great machine. Which, they are. There's also an immortal thief as well. He's only called a thief because they couldn't call him 'treasure goblin' since goblins were gone. Anyone can kill him and get a bonus, which is just what happens over and over and over, and it's just not really a role in the game. It's quite funny, but ... felt very tacked on to me. It's really cute how distinct they all are, and the interplay between them. But the game is anything BUT Vast. It's very shallow. And, it rarely matters so much what 'you' do right or wrong, as much as it does what the other players do. It ends up feeling like you're just watching it play out. THAT SAID! I've seen there are some new ones, there's like a haunted house one and stuff, and I would totally give them a go. Because the core idea is great, it's just that the execution left a bit to be desired, and I strongly suspect that they'd have fixed a lot of my beefs with new versions. !Klams fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Feb 14, 2023 |
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Feb 14, 2023 11:09
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Not sure if it's been posted about yet (doesn't seem like it?) but Holy Grail Games, the designers of the Rallyman games is going bankrupt. Their most recent release is Rallyman: Dirt, which is how I got the email, as I kickstarted Dirt. (I've received my order, though. Looks like Australia and most of Europe had their orders shipped) Looks like they were screwed around regarding shipping and didn't have any money left to bail themselves out, so they're going under. Which... sucks a bit! No more future Rallyman titles, plus more importantly, all the US+Canadian backers seem to be left in the cold, regarding all this.
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Feb 14, 2023 14:06
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Sounding like another Kickstarter Business Plan success story
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Feb 14, 2023 14:14
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Infinitum posted:Sounding like another Kickstarter Business Plan success story hahaha yep!  It's one of the only things I've ever Kickstarted in my life, and I definitely feel like I narrowly dodged a bullet there. Sucks for any NA goons who bought into it too, though. Hopefully they're able to arrange for something though, since (apparently) they're trying to figure it out. We'll see though...
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Feb 14, 2023 14:18
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i have kickstarted two things. 1860 and solar sphere. I have received both of them. I have played neither of them.
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Feb 14, 2023 14:20
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Shipping has got to be the leading cause of death for boardgame publishers. Which makes sense I guess.
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Feb 14, 2023 14:33
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My only kickstarter game has been Grail’s reprint of Knizia’s Stephenson’s Rocket, which looks absolutely lovely. And it to my understanding ended up being something of a financial issue to Grail too.
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Feb 14, 2023 14:42
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poo poo news about Holy Grail, they've been getting hosed over for a while now. They didn't have stock of Caesar's Empire at Spiel last year because it wasn't released by the warehouse, and that must have cost them a bundle. Asterix is pretty popular in Germany, they would have sold every copy they could bring.
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Feb 14, 2023 14:49
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To clarify, that Grail kickstarter delivered a few years back already, and I’ve seen releases from them since. Just hot the impression that they underestimated production/shipping costs for the game or something.
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Feb 14, 2023 14:52
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Lunsku posted:My only kickstarter game has been Grail’s reprint of Knizia’s Stephenson’s Rocket, which looks absolutely lovely. And it to my understanding ended up being something of a financial issue to Grail too. Story goes that Grail Games was onselling the Reina licensed games overseas, which breach their contract The Kniz took em to court and stopped a couple of projects I beieve they were rumoured to have been working on a reimplementation of Tigres & Euphrates at the time, which is a kick in the dick for everyone
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Feb 14, 2023 15:18
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I'm a North American backer of Rallyman: Dirt, and definitely bummed. It looked like a great game, so hopefully I'll be able to cough up some more money and still get it shipped like was finally possible with the Blacklist FS1 minis.
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Feb 14, 2023 15:18
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Infinitum posted:Story goes that Grail Games was onselling the Reina licensed games overseas, which breach their contract Looks like it, this story was from 2021: https://www.dicebreaker.com/companies/grail-games/news/knizia-cuts-ties-with-grail-games Crummy stuff.
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Feb 14, 2023 15:25
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Lunsku posted:Looks like it, this story was from 2021: That's Grail Games, not Holy Grail Games. Did they rebrand or are people getting confused?
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Feb 14, 2023 16:01
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Yup Grail Games is an Aussie company, and still very much in business, they just crossed The Kniz Holy Grail Games is bankrupt cause business plan of Always Be Kickstarting didn't work out for them
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Feb 14, 2023 16:05
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Was there anybody in the US not fulfilling through Fun Again?
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Feb 14, 2023 16:14
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!Klams posted:VAST This has been my experience as well having played it 3-4 times, and I would not play it again. You described the problems well. I do disagree in that I think all do their own minigames and when you get so extreme in asymmetry, it's as if you're playing totally different games. Like it loops back around to being a multiplayer solitaire euro. I did very much enjoy the cave the first time I played it, because I wanted to be the cave. But it raised an eyebrow after that game, so I tried it a couple more times, and my suspicions bore out.
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Feb 14, 2023 16:19
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Ugh, Rallyman is my jam and I didn’t back Dirt:KS because last time most the stuff was available retail . Probably not this time.
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Feb 14, 2023 16:21
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This Holy Grail Games issue is just another reminder that there are so many games you could buy right now without pledging money to a project that may not happen. Don't get me wrong: crowdfunding has been a great innovation insofar as it has allowed a certain greater democratization of games publishing. It can be great to support a small project that might not exist otherwise, or not possess a market for various reasons relating to subject matter, or are art projects with limited commercial viability. That's all great, and more games existing is better than fewer. The confounding factor is that it turns out business is hard and many of them fail even in the hands of otherwise talented entrepreneurs.
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Feb 14, 2023 16:34
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djfooboo posted:Ugh, Rallyman is my jam and I didn’t back Dirt:KS because last time most the stuff was available retail The base game is currently on amazon, just won't be able to get any of the expansions I'd expect. https://smile.amazon.com/Holy-Grail...qid=16763890740
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Feb 14, 2023 16:40
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Jedit posted:That's Grail Games, not Holy Grail Games. Did they rebrand or are people getting confused? Yeah thought you were talking about Grail. Haven't kept tabs on boardgame stuff that much for a few years.
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Feb 14, 2023 17:02
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Magnetic North posted:This Holy Grail Games issue is just another reminder that there are so many games you could buy right now without pledging money to a project that may not happen. Don't get me wrong: crowdfunding has been a great innovation insofar as it has allowed a certain greater democratization of games publishing. It can be great to support a small project that might not exist otherwise, or not possess a market for various reasons relating to subject matter, or are art projects with limited commercial viability. That's all great, and more games existing is better than fewer. The confounding factor is that it turns out business is hard and many of them fail even in the hands of otherwise talented entrepreneurs. Ah yes, foolish to back an interesting future project when you could buy a completely different product now instead. djfooboo posted:Ugh, Rallyman is my jam and I didn’t back Dirt:KS because last time most the stuff was available retail There's always someone unloading their KS copy right when they receive it, could probably find one still.
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Feb 14, 2023 17:05
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PRADA SLUT posted:Ah yes, foolish to back an interesting future project when you could buy a completely different product now instead. yes, that is correct. gj
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Feb 14, 2023 17:07
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It is true that entertainment products are not completely fungible in the way that a barrel of oil is. Those differences are important to the end consumer. However, that doesn't doesn't change the fact that the most sensible way to operate for most board gamers is to enjoy what is available now, both for the immediacy of reward and the vastly lower risk of losing your investment.
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Feb 14, 2023 17:28
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Shipping frankly sucks even under the best of times, and these past few years shipping has sucked harder than ever, it's not even close.
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Feb 14, 2023 17:42
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