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the holy poopacy posted:I think this is a big part of it. If you've been playing a game a couple times within the same group, some players may get more plays or just get more into it and get into the deeper strategies more quickly and you'll have a very lopsided game. Trying new games regularly keeps everybody on a more level playing field while also letting everyone continually experience the joy of discovery which is a big part of the appeal of games. The funny part of this is my group has two guys who are very good at rapidly understanding a new games problem space, and if they both play a new game with others one of those two will win 90%+ of the time.
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Jun 25, 2023 11:17
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PRADA SLUT posted:
I've got just the base game and they claim you can fit a couple extra characters in the box but it seems pretty stuffed as-is. In your experience is it possible? I'm looking to get 1-2 more gearlocks sometime but id rather not do multiple small boxes if I can help it
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Jun 25, 2023 12:56
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:The funny part of this is my group has two guys who are very good at rapidly understanding a new games problem space, and if they both play a new game with others one of those two will win 90%+ of the time. One of the FLGS regulars is a maths major. He comes in 2nd or 1st most games.
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Jun 25, 2023 15:03
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Those people should learn the coveted skill of losing while not obviously trying to lose so their friends can win a game or two some time. I have a person like that in my group too and he gets really mad when he loses to someone obviously not putting as much time into their strategy than he is.
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Jun 25, 2023 15:17
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Grundma posted:I've got just the base game and they claim you can fit a couple extra characters in the box but it seems pretty stuffed as-is. In your experience is it possible? I'm looking to get 1-2 more gearlocks sometime but id rather not do multiple small boxes if I can help it Hm.. I can’t remember, I have the trove chest. They also charged the base box since since I bought it, but I seem to remember having room in the main box. Pre-trove chest I had Undertow and a handful of extra characters and I remember using the undertow box for the character mats and the main box for everything else.
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Jun 25, 2023 16:32
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SettingSun posted:Those people should learn the coveted skill of losing while not obviously trying to lose so their friends can win a game or two some time. No he's actually really laid back and kind and will often interject with advice/strategy/probabilities during others turns so they don't make (very) suboptimal plays 😭 I just play with the mentality that if I come 2nd to him I've basically won, ahaha. I'm also not competitive at all, so that helps. I'm much better at being the Codemaster in Codenames than he is so Hah! So There! Also I'm disgustingly good at social deception games, which is a bit frightening but... nevertheless.
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Jun 25, 2023 16:38
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:The funny part of this is my group has two guys who are very good at rapidly understanding a new games problem space, and if they both play a new game with others one of those two will win 90%+ of the time. Well yeah, that was the second half of that post: making broad shallow point salad games means that when these guys win it won't be an embarrassing blowout where half the table barely gets to play, and the lack of depth doesn't matter if you just pull a new one out every couple of weeks. source: was That Guy in our pre-pandemic board game groul
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Jun 25, 2023 17:22
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Grundma posted:I've got just the base game and they claim you can fit a couple extra characters in the box but it seems pretty stuffed as-is. In your experience is it possible? I'm looking to get 1-2 more gearlocks sometime but id rather not do multiple small boxes if I can help it This should be possible; a new gearloc is just one neoprene mat and a dice tray, and the dice trays can fit two gearlocs’ worth of dice in a single tray so they’re easy to combine.
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Jun 25, 2023 17:33
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Perry Mason Jar posted:No he's actually really laid back and kind and will often interject with advice/strategy/probabilities during others turns so they don't make (very) suboptimal plays 😭 My strategy in social negotiation games has always been to be as frank and transparent as possible with everyone. It really freaks out some people, and enders you to others to the point where they’ll follow your guidance. In a hidden roles game, you just have to do the extra step of gating off your traitor identity as something that “isn’t true” when calculating best outcomes.
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Jun 25, 2023 17:43
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Anonymous Robot posted:My strategy in social negotiation games has always been to be as frank and transparent as possible with everyone. It really freaks out some people, and enders you to others to the point where they’ll follow your guidance. In a hidden roles game, you just have to do the extra step of gating off your traitor identity as something that “isn’t true” when calculating best outcomes. In social negotiation (distinct from social deception) I do similarly, but instead im transparently underhanded. You can tell I'm wheeling, dealing, and playing you for fiddle but you also feel like I'm your best hope (at least this turn). At least, that's how it is in my mind 😂
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Jun 25, 2023 18:18
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the holy poopacy posted:Well yeah, that was the second half of that post: making broad shallow point salad games means that when these guys win it won't be an embarrassing blowout where half the table barely gets to play, and the lack of depth doesn't matter if you just pull a new one out every couple of weeks. The funny thing, though, is in our group, the other guys can catch up if they have a couple of chances to play the game. One guys win rate in the first games is zero but is very respectable from game 3 onwards. Being good at new games is a specific skill that isn't quite the same as being good at games. So playing the same stuff every time definitely rewards a particular type of player. I think a bunch of it is just the ability to manage the cognitive burden of learning the rules simultaneously with stratrgising.
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Jun 25, 2023 22:33
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The real skill is making excuses of why you suck game 1, and then insisting that you're "having fun doing my own strategy" while your tableau implodes and your friends shake their heads disapprovingly
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Jun 26, 2023 00:49
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Hmm yes but actually I got screwed by turn order and I drew all bad cards and also my rolls were bad and that's basically not even on me
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Jun 26, 2023 02:00
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:The funny part of this is my group has two guys who are very good at rapidly understanding a new games problem space, and if they both play a new game with others one of those two will win 90%+ of the time. We've got one of those guys too. He's the kind of person who will happily learn as he goes against more experienced players and still ends up doing well.
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Jun 26, 2023 07:45
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We have one occasional player who tends to reliably win first games for what I think is a fairly simple reason. While other players are busy spending time figuring out the different levers a new game offers, he just finds a single point-making lever as early as possible, then spends the rest of the game prying it open. He ends up basically out-investing everyone else IMO by being bold and focused and opportunistic (and more than a little predatory) instead of learning  the game as a whole. It's an effective approach but not a very sustainable one.
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Jun 26, 2023 18:40
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The Eyes Have It posted:We have one occasional player who tends to reliably win first games for what I think is a fairly simple reason. Gross. I hate the emphasis on competitive performance during first plays present in the hobby. First plays should be about, as you say, pulling levers, seeing what happens. Exploration. Wonder. Oh and actually executing the drat rules correctly. The pressure to perform well just takes a lot out of that. The repeat play is basically an endangered animal.
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Jun 26, 2023 18:45
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To me, people who care about losing and winning are little babies. You go on, champ! You did it. Oh my god! We're so proud.
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Jun 26, 2023 18:54
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I love playing a game when my only drive is to experiment. No matter what the game it ends up out of the group meta (if there is one) and I see things we might not see if I'm playing to win. I usually end up in this state when I teach new games, either totally new or to a new person.
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Jun 26, 2023 19:02
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Pvt. Parts posted:Gross. I hate the emphasis on competitive performance during first plays present in the hobby. First plays should be about, as you say, pulling levers, seeing what happens. Exploration. Wonder. Oh and actually executing the drat rules correctly. I disagree but have the privilege of being part of groups that love to repeat play. it’s nice having the player who is basically running dominion big money to give the other players a benchmark of what works within a system
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Jun 26, 2023 19:10
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panko posted:I disagree but have the privilege of being part of groups that love to repeat play. it’s nice having the player who is basically running dominion big money to give the other players a benchmark of what works within a system Also, if it turns out there actually is a degenerate strategy I'd rather it get hashed out right off the bat so we can move on to something else instead of getting invested in several plays and then discovering that the game just doesn't work.
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Jun 26, 2023 19:15
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Perry Mason Jar posted:To me, people who care about losing and winning are little babies. You go on, champ! You did it. Oh my god! We're so proud. I kind of want to agree with this but I also tend to win a lot so I feel like I'm not really allowed to say that winning isn't important. I've had plenty of losing games where I had a great time because one of the other players did something really cool and unexpected, or I played a really smart strategy but miscalculated something which just squeaked a loss. One of the reasons why I have turned pretty hard against zero-interaction Euros recently is that in those games sometimes you do feel like you're just having a bad game, you've fallen behind for some reason and no longer have a viable route to victory but might have another 30+ minutes of gameplay left. In more interactive games you can usually try to play the table to gain an advantage somehow, so you have more ways back into the game, albeit perhaps requiring some luck or for the other players to not realise what you're doing.
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Jun 26, 2023 19:36
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I know someone who wins fairly often in games he plays, for whatever reason. He either notices the patterns and is good at exploiting them, or just gets lucky in some other cases. The other day he and some friends were playing Terraforming Mars on PC (I was watching, didn't feel like buying the game but wanted to chat) and when someone mentioned how important cities were to winning, he joked that you didn't need them. Someone else scoffed and he proceeded to follow a no-city strategy, which lost him the game in the end, but only by two points. It was pretty interesting to spectate, complete disinterest in the game aside. Me, I'm too impatient to think up strategies and both dislike thinking multiple turns ahead and also trying to out-think my opponents, so I lose more often than not, but as long as I don't feel like the game 'screwed' me, or whatever in the moment, I don't mind.
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Jun 26, 2023 19:41
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Last BGN we played a A Study in Emerald with five. I placed fourth or fifth. The winner was seated to my left and he was the person who was actually able to build an engine... mostly by taking cards away from me, which I couldn't prevent because I was to his right. Didn't have a particularly fun time but I also think the game just kinda sucks.
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Jun 26, 2023 19:50
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The Eyes Have It posted:We have one occasional player who tends to reliably win first games for what I think is a fairly simple reason. This sounds like my approach to new games. New games are big and have a lot to wrap my head around, and I find it helpful and grounding to pick something and go "okay, this will be my focus, I have this thing that gives points for every pumpkin-donkey pair so I'm going to try to build around getting lots of pumpkin-donkey pairs" or whatever. I still need to learn and interact with all the game's other systems in order to actually do whatever I'm trying to do, but it helps contextualize all that other stuff? And then next time we play, I won't be going for pumpkin-donkey pairs.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:30
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Perry Mason Jar posted:The winner was seated to my left and he was the person who was actually able to build an engine... mostly by taking cards away from me, which I couldn't prevent because I was to his right. Never playing with Judas again
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Jun 26, 2023 21:49
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the holy poopacy posted:Also, if it turns out there actually is a degenerate strategy I'd rather it get hashed out right off the bat so we can move on to something else instead of getting invested in several plays and then discovering that the game just doesn't work. Yep, 100% this. It's not a bad thing at all - it's handy to have a benchmark as a goal to beat. Lottery of Babylon posted:This sounds like my approach to new games. New games are big and have a lot to wrap my head around, and I find it helpful and grounding to pick something and go "okay, this will be my focus, I have this thing that gives points for every pumpkin-donkey pair so I'm going to try to build around getting lots of pumpkin-donkey pairs" or whatever. I still need to learn and interact with all the game's other systems in order to actually do whatever I'm trying to do, but it helps contextualize all that other stuff? And then next time we play, I won't be going for pumpkin-donkey pairs. I also agree with this, especially if it's a complicated game. Rather than trying to do everything at once and overextend, what's the problem with specialising by finding something that works, then focusing on it? Then trying a different approach next time, that you noticed earlier
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Jun 27, 2023 01:48
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Does anyone else feel early Lacerda games are too rigid in their strategy? My group has been playing The Gallerist lately and while it's a clever game, it feels like every player is trying execute the exact same strategy with no meaningful asymmetry. Everyone wants to get art, drive up the price by increasing artist fame, sell it for profit, and then make sure to stop by the international market enough to grab end-game scoring bonuses. There is some asymmetry, but it barely plays out in a meaningful way. Whether you go VIP/influence or investor/money, you are still ultimately using each one to do the same actions, just through different conversion mechanisms. Everyone picks up slightly different end game scoring tiles, but none of them are impactful enough to change your entire strategy around; you more just grab ones that already work with what you have. Since everyone is basically doing the same thing I find it's very easy to figure out exactly how everyone else is doing by mid-way into the game and it's quite difficult to make a comeback, because everyone is going to keep up the general tempo of how they use the action spaces. I remember Kanban being similar in this regard. I have not played any of his newer titles, but I think I am going to probably sell the Gallerist because of this. I prefer a higher level of asymmetric strategic options.
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Jun 27, 2023 19:02
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Lacerdas are the opposite of Splotters. You get a huge space of systems and interactions to do the same thing as everyone else and the main struggle is making those systems work to get you there. The game drives your choices and strategy. As much as people hyperfocus on FCM having set openings, the game branches out into a million different paths after those initial choices. You're playing against the other players instead of the systems of the game. They're just a sandbox where almost nothing happens without players causing it.
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Jun 27, 2023 19:19
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Bottom Liner posted:Lacerdas are the opposite of Splotters. You get a huge space of systems and interactions to do the same thing as everyone else and the main struggle is making those systems work to get you there. The game drives your choices and strategy. Given my favorite games are Indonesia, Great Zimbabwe, Age of Steam, Gaia Project, and Brass, the rigidity is not really working for me here. I much prefer the open high-player-agency logistics puzzles of Splotter to this rather constrained design. I think this only became obvious with Gallersit on the 3rd play though. But it was a quick transition. Plays 1 & 2 were great fun. I started to notice above issue on play 3. I enjoyed games 4 and 5 significantly less and started thinking about selling the game.
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Jun 27, 2023 20:13
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Lacerda is one of my least favorite top tier designers. His games always feel flat and procedural to the max. I have The Gallerist only because I like the theme (thin as it is). Don’t get the hype at all.
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Jun 27, 2023 20:25
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I like Vinhos because of the theme and also because I enjoy systems that force you to make a small amount of critical choices. The number of actions in Vinhos is severely limited and I like having to do the most with such limitations.
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Jun 27, 2023 20:28
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Also the worst top tier designer is Feld.
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Jun 27, 2023 20:30
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Tekopo posted:Also the worst top tier designer is Feld. Ive only played one of his games - Castles of Burgundy. Its one of the most incredibly dull games I've ever played and I really dont see how it got as popular as it did.
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Jun 27, 2023 20:32
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Everyone post your designer tier lists, both personal and recieved.
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Jun 27, 2023 20:33
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Mr. Squishy posted:Everyone post your designer tier lists, both personal and recieved. Everyone you like - Dumb Everyone I like - Genius
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Jun 27, 2023 20:37
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Infinitum posted:Everyone you like - Dumb 
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Jun 27, 2023 20:38
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The only designer tier list I know of is Jamey Stegmaiers tier list of races he wants to make out with
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Jun 27, 2023 20:39
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Jamey Stegmaiers "Mechanics I love" 
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Jun 27, 2023 20:48
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Bottom Liner posted:The only designer tier list I know of is Jamey Stegmaiers tier list of races he wants to make out with Sorry what? Is this real?
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Jun 27, 2023 21:15
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Tekopo posted:Also the worst top tier designer is Feld. Rude and untrue, it's Vega. I like at least three or four felds, and dislike a bit more than that.
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Jun 27, 2023 21:16
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