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Tekopo posted:We should also forbid the Catan joke from the board game thread. I think censorship would be in the best interest of everyone for that. So a settler, the robber, and a sheep walk into a bar...
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Mar 22, 2023 01:18
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Mar 22, 2023 01:55
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I used to post regularly in the BG threads back into the Broken Loose days, waxing long about “what constitutes ‘fun’ and why it was a meaningless metric,” but I have just lost all interest in trying to not get shouted down. I’ve posted a few threads in TG like a decade ago, and I’ve been around lurking/posting in other threads, but I don’t go in the board games thread anymore. Calling bad games bad is fine, and one of the nice “breath of fresh air” parts of it, but it had (when I last read it) gotten incredibly doctrinaire about what was “good” and what was “bad”, not in terms of concept or mechanic, but in terms of game and players. lovely slap fights and a clear clique mentality (which, tbf, I have also participated in) just amplified the unwelcoming atmosphere. I don’t think there’s an easy moderating or IK fix, just wanted to throw my two cents in that the board game thread now sucks in unique and unexciting ways.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:01
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A few other thoughts on the board games thread. The thread is a catch-all for almost every board game. Of which there are 10s of thousands in existence and probably at least several hundred worth consideration. This is also going to include board games designed for drastically different audiences, board games that are basically out of print, board games for people just starting, board games for long time players or people who produce content for the hobby, Ameritrash and Eurogames, and more. Containing all of that to a single thread with a single thread culture is kind of impossible to do; the culture is going to tend toward the tastes of the main posters over time. Most other media in this forum has a bunch of threads for it. Hell, there are several warhammer threads and a few Magic the Gathering Threads, and those are generally for single game systems. So, I have an idea/proposal. Traditional Games recently underwent a new edition to make it no longer an expansion of the games forum, but its own full-fledged posting system. This also means it can have its own subforums (of which a couple currently exist). With that I mind, I propose that we close the board games thread and instead make an entire board games subforum of TG. This opens up to topic to a much broader array of posters, including new people and people who feel uncomfortable with the mega thread. I think making it a subforum will encourage people to make and post individual threads for games rather than just stick to one mega thread where posts about smaller games get lost in the conversation. People won’t have to worry about the threads they’re interested in having derails about controversial games. It also allows a fresh reboot for everyone and an acknowledgement that “hey this hobby is too big for a single thread.” I know it would be extra work for the mods but I think it has a good shot at exorcising some of acrimony and trepidation built up around the topic. What do other folks think?
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Mar 22, 2023 03:03
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I don't want to weigh in on that immediately but one option is suggesting boardgames as a theme for the experimental/temporary subforum program. Previous temporary subs have included the recent one for the world cup, spooky Halloween stuff, and outdoors/camping which wound up becoming permanent. A temporary boardgames forum would serve to highlight the genre to the whole of SA. I can't guarantee it'd happen of course but there's a thread soliciting ideas here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4026662
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Mar 22, 2023 03:10
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I'd definitely be in favor of a Board Game RSF, with the possibility of a subforum if it goes well. It does seem like the sheer breadth of board games might be better served with more dedicated threads.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:14
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Leperflesh posted:I don't want to weigh in on that immediately but one option is suggesting boardgames as a theme for the experimental/temporary subforum program. Previous temporary subs have included the recent one for the world cup, spooky Halloween stuff, and outdoors/camping which wound up becoming permanent. A temporary boardgames forum would serve to highlight the genre to the whole of SA. I can't guarantee it'd happen of course but there's a thread soliciting ideas here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4026662 Thank you but I am suggesting it as a sub for this forum, specifically, and would like to see others’ thoughts on that.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:14
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I don't see why breaking off into a subforum would help. The board game thread already has big name games split off into their own threads when there's enough interest to support them. At best I think that just recreates the current dynamic of a few threads for especially popular games and one big thread that covers everything else. At worst you end up with a dead subforum full of 3 post threads.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:16
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Just remembering the Rutibex Talisman cereal box warez version and having a sensible chuckle. (Board games are certainly big enough to have more than a single thread by now, instead of just general discussion and game-specific threads)
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Mar 22, 2023 03:28
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Toshimo posted:You wood like that, wouldn't ewe. If your pun isn't so bad that it's making a mod hover their finger ominously over the sixer button, it's not a pun.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:28
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The RSF seems like a reasonable experiment, if nothing else the theme is clear and a thousand threads might bloom. Maybe we'd get some new blood.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:28
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Dr. Lunchables posted:Just remembering the Rutibex Talisman cereal box warez version and having a sensible chuckle. Thing is, if someone decided "I want focused discussion on this game, or genre, or category" they're already welcome to make a thread. There's a wargames thread (for hex and counter, block, commands and colors, etc) which gets some traffic, not a huge amount. I know there was a train games thread at one point and it died, just not enough interest. There's a gloomhaven thread, or was last I checked. I just don't see a need, without someone wanting to put the topic itself out there.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:32
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silvergoose posted:Thing is, if someone decided "I want focused discussion on this game, or genre, or category" they're already welcome to make a thread. There's a wargames thread (for hex and counter, block, commands and colors, etc) which gets some traffic, not a huge amount. I know there was a train games thread at one point and it died, just not enough interest. There's a gloomhaven thread, or was last I checked. Yeah, but remember when he printed the expansions?
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Mar 22, 2023 03:34
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All of the following board games have their own active threads:
And there were plenty more that died from inactivity, not any sort of mod fiat. There's literally nothing stopping anyone from spinning up a thread for any game, except lack of interest/inertia. If more BGs had the level of broad depth and interest, they'd have them, just like all the LCGs/TCGs do. The reality is, there's just generally not enough traffic to warrant separate threads, much less an entire subforum. Hell, the primary MtG thread is about the same age as the current BG thread, and has about 4x as many posts. And there's like 8 active MtG threads. You could sustain more of a subforum off LCGs/TCGs than you could BGs, and I still don't think that's worthwhile.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:44
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sirtommygunn posted:I don't see why breaking off into a subforum would help. The board game thread already has big name games split off into their own threads when there's enough interest to support them. At best I think that just recreates the current dynamic of a few threads for especially popular games and one big thread that covers everything else. At worst you end up with a dead subforum full of 3 post threads. I agree with this. Dr. Lunchables posted:I used to post regularly in the BG threads back into the Broken Loose days, waxing long about “what constitutes ‘fun’ and why it was a meaningless metric,” but I have just lost all interest in trying to not get shouted down. I’ve posted a few threads in TG like a decade ago, and I’ve been around lurking/posting in other threads, but I don’t go in the board games thread anymore. Cool, thanks for your no longer relevant anecdote. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Mar 22, 2023 |
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Mar 22, 2023 03:56
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For what it's worth, the RSF experiment might be worth it to draw the eye of any boardgamers who aren't aware of the threads. I do agree that opening more threads without organic need will result in a lot of dead threads. The new one thread that might be worthwhile, though low traffic, is something like "Cardboard Newbies: Recommend me a boardgame." It would be lower traffic than the chat thread, but if stickied could be a soft landing for people who have just played Catan for the first time and want to find out more about this mystic realm of
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Mar 22, 2023 03:58
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There's probably not enough traffic for a wingspan thread but probably more than enough for an engine builder thread. Similarly a worker placement thread.
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Mar 22, 2023 04:00
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An RSF seems like a fun idea. Realistically there probably aren't many games/genres that would sustain their own thread long term (maybe train games?) but people might post for a while in an RSF out of novelty, and it wouldn't matter if individual game threads had legs or not because the RSF would only be around a little while anyhow. And if a thread did find an audience then it could get moved back to TG.
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Mar 22, 2023 04:02
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Crackbone posted:Cool, thanks for your no longer relevant anecdote. drat, it’s almost like this post dwarf74 posted:If I have to pick between "drive by shitposts with bad opinions" and "over the top self-righteous screeds against forums enemies" I'll take the former any day. Wasn’t earlier today. Or the discussion about the accessibility of the board game thread. Today. drat.
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Mar 22, 2023 04:11
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Admiralty Flag posted:For what it's worth, the RSF experiment might be worth it to draw the eye of any boardgamers who aren't aware of the threads. I do agree that opening more threads without organic need will result in a lot of dead threads.
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Mar 22, 2023 04:19
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I guess part of my thinking for making a board games subforum is that there would no longer be one catchall thread, not even a chat one. People would have to make new threads. Maybe it would kill all interest in posting about board games or maybe it would encourage new posters and new ideas. I dunno. Board games hit a really rough patch during the pandemic and it kind of culled all but the thread diehards. Almost everyone is back to normal with socializing now, and, prior to 2020, board games were a big hobby growing a lot bigger. So, I think it could help to have a reboot that isn’t based on posting drama.
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Mar 22, 2023 04:19
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Dr. Lunchables posted:drat, it’s almost like this post
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Mar 22, 2023 04:23
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fr0id posted:I guess part of my thinking for making a board games subforum is that there would no longer be one catchall thread, not even a chat one. People would have to make new threads. Maybe it would kill all interest in posting about board games or maybe it would encourage new posters and new ideas. I dunno. Board games hit a really rough patch during the pandemic and it kind of culled all but the thread diehards. Almost everyone is back to normal with socializing now, and, prior to 2020, board games were a big hobby growing a lot bigger. So, I think it could help to have a reboot that isn’t based on posting drama. It seems like a solution in search of a problem. The board game thread doesn't move so quickly that it swamps discussion of smaller games. People just post about whatever games they want to and it's fine. If a game starts dominating conversation for pages then it usually gets spun off to a new thread. An RSF outing might be fun though.
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Mar 22, 2023 04:49
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It seems to me like we need a tradgames Imp Zone to stir up more sitewide interest in gaming maybe that should be the rsf
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Mar 22, 2023 04:50
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PerniciousKnid posted:It seems like a solution in search of a problem. The board game thread doesn't move so quickly that it swamps discussion of smaller games. People just post about whatever games they want to and it's fine. If a game starts dominating conversation for pages then it usually gets spun off to a new thread. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. I was trying to find the right words to describe it earlier, but you've hit the nail on the head, I think. That being said, a more informal board game RSF would be fun, so it's worth a go! And if there's enough traction in threads there, who knows? Maybe they might decide to make the Meeple Zone (or whatever!) a permanent fixture of the forums
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Mar 22, 2023 04:59
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Tism the Dragon Tickler posted:It seems to me like we need a tradgames Imp Zone to stir up more sitewide interest in gaming I made a thread for tabletop gaming on IZ already. A board game one could he interesting though. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3956163&pagenumber=22&perpage=40
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Mar 22, 2023 04:59
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Plutonis posted:I made a thread for tabletop gaming on IZ already. A board game one could he interesting though. Yeah, to be honest I could've sworn we had an IZ board gaming thread last year or something, but I just couldn't find it when I tried looking earlier. I might just be going crazy, though. Either way, your TTRPG thread has definitely been a success in my opinion, so I'm certain there's a market for IZ-tier relaxed and cool board gaming chat!
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Mar 22, 2023 05:17
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What's the imp zone anyways
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Mar 22, 2023 05:26
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Ominous Jazz posted:What's the imp zone anyways It's where we sequester all the internet demons so the rest of Something Awful can be a good, Christian forum.
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Mar 22, 2023 05:31
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PurpleXVI posted:It's where we sequester all the internet demons so the rest of Something Awful can be a good, Christian forum. No I've seem how people post in here
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Mar 22, 2023 05:35
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Ominous Jazz posted:What's the imp zone anyways It's a FYAD-lite where you go there to talk about video games you like and don't bother talking about things you don't like, resent, can't resist being a tremendous weirdo about, etc. Not in a fake positivity way, but sort of in a light chat thread type tone. It mostly exists in response to how Games used to be, where it felt like a ton of threads were populated by people who had poured hundreds or thousands of hours into a game or series until all the fun had been obliterated and all they could do was complain and keep playing it.
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Mar 22, 2023 05:48
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Ominous Jazz posted:What's the imp zone anyways PurpleXVI posted:It's where we sequester all the internet demons so the rest of Something Awful can be a good, Christian forum. Nah, it's just a relaxed place to post about games and game-related topics. It's a pretty good group of people! The only issues arise when people like worms butthole guy (RIP) post in there, with what appears to be the sole intent of being aggro and embarrassing themselves, in new and inventive ways. Doesn't hurt to give it a peek anyway, if people are interested - since as I said, it's a good bunch of posters! EDIT: As Nuns with Guns said, it's basically Games, but relaxed and without so many weirdos 
Major Isoor fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Mar 22, 2023 |
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Mar 22, 2023 05:53
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As a Board Game Thread regular it's been interesting seeing the K:DM discussion essentially reach the same conclusions real time. The game is controversial. Neither the game nor the controversy warrants 90% of a threads attention, but it inevitably gets it, because it's just a much hotter issue than 'The egg problem in Wingspan' or 'Whether non-Atreides players can take notes'. That makes for a very boring thread. I personally don't think splitting up the Board Gaming thread is the best idea. I hear about a lot of stuff in there I wouldn't otherwise, I get more about the hobby from that thread than anywhere else, and it's mostly because finding stuff on BGG or whatever, you kind of have to actively go in looking for it. I mean just a small example, but I've never, ever heard for 19xx games outside of that thread, but in there they're talked about like the absolute bees knees, so I'll try and check one out. Likewise, COIN games sound right up my alley, never ever would have heard of them if not for cross talk in that thread.
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Mar 22, 2023 09:19
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If Trad Games wanted to try some extra sub forums I would have no problem creating them. We are not limited for space and maybe they take off and we have more posts and threads, and maybe they do not and we bring the threads back into Trad Games. Likewise, creating more threads is always an option - no one ever said no to more and more threads where you can talk about stuff you enjoy.
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Mar 22, 2023 10:20
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I don't personally think there would be enough traffic to warrant an entire subforum just for board games, to be honest. There's only a few active board game threads that aren't the main thread, and I've always noticed that specific threads tend to die on the vine eventually. in the past we had threads for stuff like L99 games, fighting card games, etc etc and eventually they either die or get one post a month, and I do think after the initial rush and excitement of getting a sub-forum, most of the threads there would be kind of inactive. I prefer just new threads pop up in a shared forums: TG isn't high-traffic enough to things get instantly shunted to the second page, and sometimes I like seeing new threads pop up that are interesting, even if I don't actively post on them. Just post threads is the best solution IMO.
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Mar 22, 2023 10:27
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I will also note, discoverability is a problem. Many people tend to follow threads, and don't necessarily check out every new thread in a forum, user control panel rather than jumping into a forum to see what's new. New threads, then posting a link in the main thread, is how it seems to work, and that seems okay. I agree with "solution in search of a problem".
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Mar 22, 2023 12:35
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I think there's pros and cons to a thread or forum split. It reminds me of how the old BSS webcomic thread was one central place for discussion of making and reading webcomics years ago, and it was pretty active. It had creators and readers of a lot of comics engaging with each other and it could be pretty interesting. Or acerbic. I'm sure the tone of webcomic discussion in the late aughts/early 2010s SA wasn't too different from a board game thread then was, if it existed. Now that BSS thread is pretty well dead. Some of that's natural churn, people moving on etc. Splitting off discussion definitely drained a lot of marrow out of it, too, though. The making side of comics was split into a Creative Convention thread that's still extant and gets maybe 5 posts per month because that's a very small, low-traffic subforum. Plus for a while any comic that was seen to "dominate" discussion, aka "get more than a page of chat when nobody was talking about anything else," got split off into its own thread. Then there was a period where any "negative" discussion wasn't permitted, so people left for the CCCC subforum's thread where they could give honest positive or negative opinions about a comic and have discussions like that. I'm not presenting this to say "no, don't do that!" but ultimately to gauge if interest justifies split discussions. Maybe a rotating subforum would be a good thing to try for a month or two to see if that'd draw new eyes in? It'd probably help if some people made dedicated threads for a few broad categories right when the RSF launched. Like "Eurogames Megathread: Meeples are Peeples Too!" and "Monopoly: Post Here and Get Probated" Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Mar 22, 2023 |
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Mar 22, 2023 13:50
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I have no problems trying things out and having fun with forums and threads. You guys are the content creators and if I can assist in facilitating any of it then I am down for it.  Ultimately, all of you should enjoy posting here about Trad Games. I want to make this work for as many as possible.
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Mar 22, 2023 13:51
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let's not say content creators. this is a forum not twitch this isn't some monetized side job mess.
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Mar 22, 2023 13:54
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Not really proposing any sort of solution but just some thoughts. As a comparative example, I think the value in spinning Retro Games off from Games was that while it's not a heavily trafficked/active forum, there are threads in there that would get buried several pages back if they were competing with the high traffic megathreads that compromise a lot of Games. I don't think there's so much traffic in TG, and so broadly agree that threads could just be spun off here if need be without issues. That said, as VG pointed out it's not like it costs anything to spin up a subforum, and a RSF generally might get some folks more interested in chatting about boardgames which would be cool! Discoverability is a problem but sadly I don't know that I've ever seen a viable solution to get people to stop browsing the forums directly from their bookmarks tab.
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