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I get why people like the kind of experiences it generates, but that kind of randomness is exactly what I don’t want in a long social deduction game. Making the game draw out to the last night makes the game less about any of the skills involved in solving and playing a game and more about telling a story as a group. That’s what I meant about it being more of a guided role play session.
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May 2, 2024 22:21
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I think anybody who thinks BotC isn't about skill-based problem solving hasn't played BotC. The BotC storyteller doesn't add randomness, they add uncertainty, which is very different, and in my opinion makes for a better game. You get into that "I know that I know but I also know that I don't know" logic. You know what the Storyteller told you, but you also know (in a bound, factual, rules-oriented way) reasons why the Storyteller might have lied to you. If they lied to you, then you can reason from that. The Storyteller can only have lied to you if you're the town Drunk, which would mean that the other person can't be the Virgin, so either they're the Virgin or you're the Drunk, not both, so from there you can reason... In my personal experience, the people who prefer WW/Mafia tend to be the Sherlock types who enjoy explaining how they socially deducted everything, whereas BotC is much more of a group exercise where both teams need to actually coordinate and work together.
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May 2, 2024 22:59
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Storyteller agency also does one very important thing - it makes it interesting and fun to be the storyteller.
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May 2, 2024 23:19
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I haven't played it, but I've read the roles and scenarios and seen it played enough to measure the impact the story teller has. I don't think the storyteller influencing the game removes skill and choice, but it does reduce it. The previous poster even said they make choices as the storyteller randomly to shake thing up. It's still Werewolf at heart and requires social problem solving and probability management, but that extra layer of haze and second guessing is unappealing at every level to me.
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May 2, 2024 23:20
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Ohthehugemanatee posted:Oh, and anyone have thoughts on the Divinity board game? I honestly am in awe of how good it turned out to be, because I expected it to be completely awful (having backed it and then waited for four years and several different designers before getting the product). Every area, at least after the intro parts, has different environments and the game really revolves around finding synergy with other players to make combos, but you're frequently thrown into scenarios where your established combo doesn't work and you've got to work together to figure out something new. The narrative is fun and there are absolutely tonnes of decisions to be made about where to go next - it's estimated that one playthrough will let you see maybe a third of the total content. It's not as good a game as Frosthaven when you talk about a pure gameplay level, but the narrative is way better than Frosthaven and it stays true to the videogame idea of making your character any way you want. You can also completely respec your character every time you level up, so there's no risk of being stuck in a rut for the entire campaign unless you think you've stumbled into something that is always going to be good. Which you probably haven't, because the game (so far) frequently switches up enemies and how to best kill them. The monster minis are completely unnecessary, though they are beautiful. The minis (beyond the hero characters in the base game) are pretty much just bosses and summons. Bosses only ever appear one at a time with a black standee marked 'G', so the mini is pointless, and summons (other than the black cat, which is only available through the expansions with minis) are always on the same space as your hero so that's also pointless. We're currently doing the Haunted Keep expansion which has been a huge change for us and how our characters have to react to situations, so that's a lot of fun. We also skipped the entirety of Fort Joy, and if you have played the video game you know how huge that is - but we're not under-leveled as a result, because we went on a whole different path. I'm deliberately not reading ahead on any of the locations because the surprises each one brings is really exciting. I paid for this game years ago and only didn't ask for a refund out of morbid curiosity because I thought it was going to be a trainwreck with beautiful minis, but it turned out to be a lot of fun (at least so far).
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May 2, 2024 23:45
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Bottom Liner posted:I haven't played it, but I've read the roles and scenarios and seen it played enough to measure the impact the story teller has. I don't think the storyteller influencing the game removes skill and choice, but it does reduce it. The previous poster even said they make choices as the storyteller randomly to shake thing up. It's still Werewolf at heart and requires social problem solving and probability management, but that extra layer of haze and second guessing is unappealing at every level to me. I hear you, and I think on paper it does sound bad. In reality, with a good ST that just isn’t the way it plays out, it’s fundamentally a solvable puzzle with social elements. That said it absolutely isn’t for everyone. I have friends who ask to sit out at game night if we’re debating about playing it (and then we ultimately play something else instead).
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May 2, 2024 23:47
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Bottom Liner posted:I haven't played it, but I've read the roles and scenarios and seen it played enough to measure the impact the story teller has. I don't think the storyteller influencing the game removes skill and choice, but it does reduce it. The previous poster even said they make choices as the storyteller randomly to shake thing up. It's still Werewolf at heart and requires social problem solving and probability management, but that extra layer of haze and second guessing is unappealing at every level to me. From everything you've posted, I don't think you would enjoy BotC, but probably not for the reasons you think. BotC is bar none the most skill-intensive social deduction game I've played, and I've tried a whole lot of them.
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May 3, 2024 00:47
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Nearly home from the bar having played a couple games of Blood on the Clocktower. Now, it's a game I have been eyeing for a very, very long time, have watched multiple plays of, read the wiki and strategy on, and all the rest long before playing it - I already knew it was exactly my type of game. That said, it was an absolute blast and actually playing it entirely lived up to imagining playing it. Really pumped to play again, just tons of fun. This group has decided to make it a regular, monthly thing so we'll have a nice dedicated group for many plays moving forward. Games went: townsfolk lose, then townsfolk win. I was townsfolk both games. Keeping in mind all but two of seven players were brand new to the game (well, six and a half with me being a half because I'd dug into it so deeply before actually playing it)... In the first game I correctly deduced the minion from plays, and correctly deduced the demon from social cues. Unfortunately, an accidental vote from a townsfolk (who maintains they totally did not intend to have their hand up) put me on the chopping block. Panicking because a townsfolk execution guaranteed a loss for team blue - I was second higher-voted execution after a successful vote on the execution of the demon - I made a nomination and... nominated the Virgin (just blanked on them probably-likely being the Virgin) and instantly lost us the game due to three townsfolk and one demon being alive during last execution votes. I die, demon executes, evil wins. Woops! Two-man combo of misplay/accident to cost us the win. Live and learn! I don't regret the second beer anyway. Second game was a dud due to rookie error. The demon bluffed as the Chef which is (a) a terrible bluff cause executing a first-night-only information townsfolk just makes sense (b) they bluffed it wrong anyway by claiming they got information a second time, which is not possible and not a mistake the ST would have made. ST did make a small mistake in the first game but this one was extremely unlikely. Easy execute and insta-loss for team red. Anti-climactic but, hey, still fun. Perry Mason Jar fucked around with this message at 04:42 on May 3, 2024 |
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May 3, 2024 04:38
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BGG has an interesting designer diary for the Heat expansion: https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/160567/designer-diary-heat-heavy-rain Looks like they have 6 more expansions they would like to release each year.
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May 4, 2024 00:49
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an actual dog posted:It wasn't a vote, it was the one player who's the demon deciding who to kill. The storyteller has tools to stop that and probably should have, but also being a good storyteller in BOTC is extremely hard so stuff like this can get skipped. Also, the butler is a funky role that kind of sucks for a new player, it's one of the outsider roles that are on the good side but have a drawback. I was the butler for both of my first two games and can confirm. My experience of BOTC was pretty rough and I played about six games before giving it up because I somehow ended up as one of the outsiders every time. It felt like the game was picking on me by the end - I remember saying before one game I'd be happy with any role except the tinker, whose 'ability' is just 'You can die at any time for no reason.' Guess which role I picked randomly from a bag. Crashbee fucked around with this message at 11:44 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 11:37
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Whenever I get the pleasure of playing BSG, fate conspires almost always to make me a Cylon. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I stayed a human. This is fun, since being the informed minority is powerful. But also, everyone else kinda takes as a baseline that I am a Cylon and doesn't afford me a lick of trust.
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May 4, 2024 16:08
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Perry Mason Jar posted:I typed up this lengthy response before realizing you may not have any interest in playing again or otherwise care to learn strategy. But anyway, here it is in case you do, or someone else does. AN is firmly a top-two favorite game (SI competing) for me now so I love talking about it! Played another round of Ark Nova with the same 2 opponents. So my second game ever along with the other guy plus the owner who has played only a couple more. I watched a few videos on basic strategy, and while a bunch of it went straight over my head because I couldn’t even remember 100% of the rules at this point, I did internalize a few key tips, mainly which maps are good, which actions people generally upgrade first, and the power of an early Conservation, along with the few cards that are just straight OP. Looking back, your advice is pretty similar. Our first game we played map A. This game we played the random maps. I took Park Restaurant from my choice. My opponents were Ice Cream Parlor and Hollywood Hills. This caused the game to be even longer than the first game because of the loss of the map A start bonuses. The game was also long because we all got a really slow start on animals, I think somewhat because of the initial draws and also we just don’t understand how to push the pace at this point. The first few rounds saw a lot of sponsors being played and the Parlor guy was focusing on covering spaces and Kiosks. I looked at the Conservations and targeted one low level one I could definitely get right after the first break, a 2 location icon. I got a partner zoo and played my only animal then took us to break. Round 2 immediately got the conservation, using the +guy cube (per video advice) and flipping a card. I had planned to flip Build first per most recommendations, but sitting there with Sponsors about to be in my 5, holding a 5 sponsor that immediately would give me +guy, I decided to go for that. Since I had sponsors flipped, I (at some point) played Basic Research for 3 CP, and Diversity Researcher which seems to be regarded as a noob trap, but appropriately seemed really handy to me. In stark contrast to last game where I had a hard time upgrading anything, I took all the Conservation track bonuses first, and had 4 cards flipped before anyone else even had 3. Both my opponents took the +guy on the track bonus instead of the card flip and regretted it heavily later in the game. I spent the rest of the game trying to set up for Conservations and insta-snapped Bald Eagle when it came up on the board. My big play was then to support a conservation using the cube that gave me a free Aviary, then ending the game with play 2 animals, a 4 asian bird and Bald Eagle, then using the extra action supporting a 5 CP conservation to release a 4 asian animal. I won by a lot, the Hollywood player made a reasonable comeback with a bunch of crazy sponsors but my CP lead was too big, and the Parlor player had a similar game to my first game, where he got behind on upgrades and felt like he really couldn’t do much compared to us.
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May 4, 2024 17:39
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SettingSun posted:Whenever I get the pleasure of playing BSG, fate conspires almost always to make me a Cylon. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I stayed a human. This is fun, since being the informed minority is powerful. But also, everyone else kinda takes as a baseline that I am a Cylon and doesn't afford me a lick of trust. Way back when we would play BSG regularly the Cylon's were on such a winning streak that NOBODY wanted to be one of the Cylon's that finally lost to the humans. I also tended to be a Cylon a lot and it was kind of stressful (in a fun way). Eventually the humans won while I was a human so that felt pretty good. That game generally was one of our favorites but this was a very social group who got a real kick of out blaming each other and laughing about how we always ended up throwing everyone in the brig eventually. We once invited a player who was not very social and got really angry when people accused him of stuff, so much that he sort of flipped out and revealed his card to everyone and effectively ruined the game 'See!? See?! I TOLD you I wasnt a Cylon!'.
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May 4, 2024 18:37
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I haven't played BSG in like 12 years and I saw that the game fetches kinda ridiculous prices on eBay now. I absolutely adored the game but I kinda got tired of hidden traitor games and I'm still tired of them now, but I saw that the base game + all expansions could easily go for like $500. But now that I know that I kinda like the nostalgia of holding onto my old copy.
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May 4, 2024 23:22
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Just played World Of Warcraft: The Adventure Game (2005), with the expansions. The good,: The combination of leveling up, feeling more powerful, is done really well. It's neat at the start you are afraid of lvl 2 enemies, but mid-point, you can destroy them. There were enough options between getting new powers, items, and facing enemies, that the game felt interesting, and we were invested enough the time went by quick. The Bad: I wish the guy who owned it focused more on teaching, and helping us out. The game isn't complicated, but falls into the Sentinels Of The Multiverse issue of too many modifiers to keep track of. The game is more "Arkham Horror" levels of randomness, that I think balancing it wouldn't work. The Ugly: The game took 5 hours We did simultaneous turns. Trying to do your turn with your team while others are talking, while figuring out the modifiers was too much. All in All it was neat to experience the game, and I do like its combat system, and how it interacts with the powers players get. But a 5 hour game is too much, and I think I will never, ever do simultaneous turns ever again.
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May 5, 2024 02:58
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I am never going to read BOTC as anything but Breath of the Clocktower. Played some Parks today (or rather, some PARKS), with the Nightfall expansion for the first time. I liked it, added some options without extending the game's length, which is perfect in an expansion. The game is deceptively long though, which has usually been my issue with it. I always forget that it can take a while to play even though it's a fairly chill game about walking through parks.
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May 5, 2024 04:18
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Second go of Arcs tonight, and I still dunno. Put in Leaders and Lore to try them out. My opinion hasn't really worsened on the game but didn't really improve either. I won't poo poo on a game lots of people appear to like, so I'll just say it didn't jive with me or my group.
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May 6, 2024 03:36
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Did you have much downtime sorting out rules or edge cases?
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May 6, 2024 03:58
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Well it is good to get a dissenting opinion on Arcs. I’ve found with Root and Oath I find the story the game tells more interesting than the gameplay itself. From the reviews I was reading it seemed like this might be the game that has an engaging gameplay system, rather than relying on fragile paths to victory to created exaggerated table politics. I’m going to wait for more opinions to filter in to see if I grab it or not.
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May 6, 2024 05:18
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I maintain that there's not much political or social engineering going on in Root. The only real case there is the otters but even then it's not much wheeling and dealing as it is pretty much a "if you want this, you'll pay the max because its worth it" situation. Oath leans much heavier into that stuff though and plays more like his non-Leder games while still having the feel and structure of a Euro-first design. I would be curious to watch a group that's played Oath like 20+ times just to see what their games look like.
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May 6, 2024 05:51
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million dollar mack posted:Did you have much downtime sorting out rules or edge cases? Not really. We ironed out most of that in the first game, and the game ended in the 4th chapter due to some lopsided scoring as we were experimenting. There was one little rule gaffe that definitively decided the game: when you ransack the court any agents you claim from this are trophies and not captives and this locked in warlord for the eventual winner accidentally. There was some emergent storytelling but not as much as Oath. I grabbed the Material Cartel which lets the owner use the material supply for scoring and that got used and passed around creatively until I did away with it once I got it back. We also just couldn't grok the proper strategy for playing cards so we felt like we were playing at random even as we were actively discussing during the game to try and grasp some strategy. Bottom Liner posted:I maintain that there's not much political or social engineering going on in Root There really isn't. I once heard it called Strategic Whining. Actions are limited and there is very, very little room to spare those actions for political maneuvering. I say this as someone who enjoys a decent game of Root.
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May 6, 2024 06:33
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If you’re unused to trick taking games then I imagine Arcs is going to be very weird. I say this as someone who hasn’t played Arcs, but the reviews really have honed in on that being the core of the gameplay.
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May 6, 2024 08:46
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Oh, is Arcs joining the canon of games where you start the rules teach by asking if they know Hearts?
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May 6, 2024 10:40
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I've played my fair share of BOTC and I am growing increasingly certain that it's a very fun experience provided by a pretty bad game.
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May 6, 2024 11:00
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I don't know squat about trick taking so maybe that is part of the issue. Couldn't align any intended strategy I tried to make with the cards I had. The action economy was already incredibly thin and not knowing how to play cards effectively stifled it even further.
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May 6, 2024 14:55
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The "trick-taking" seems to be extremely thin in the final design of the game, as it appears to come down to "match the lead suit to do all your actions or play any other card to take one single action". I'm not sure if there's more to it than that, but it definitely doesn't seem like the original 'this game is a trick-taking game' pitch.
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May 6, 2024 15:22
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Pryce posted:The "trick-taking" seems to be extremely thin in the final design of the game, as it appears to come down to "match the lead suit to do all your actions or play any other card to take one single action". I'm not sure if there's more to it than that, but it definitely doesn't seem like the original 'this game is a trick-taking game' pitch. Similar to Brian Boru, then.
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May 6, 2024 15:24
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Yeah, as I said above, it's more of an action-follow game with "trick taking" as a component for initiative. I think it deviated from its initial premise. A hand will usually present a number of choices:
It can feel constraining, but each game is 3 or 5 hands of 6 cards, so you know what you've got to work with. If you're not dealt any Battle suits you're not going to war any time soon - the game can limit certain paths - but as as a general rule you have the freedom to do what you want but it's a game of optimizing to do as much as you can.
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May 6, 2024 15:30
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How close is it to Pax Pamir's "free action if following suit" mechanics?
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May 6, 2024 15:54
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Playing combinations of resources is very strong and often bypasses the limits of the cards delt. One weapon resource can change all the pips to battle actions and when you couple that with a fuel to move first you can make any turn with a low ranked card turn into war machine. In the leder games discord people were discussing strategy and a popular idea is that you are often sculpting your guild cards and resources to have 1 or maybe 2 action cards be really effective and everything else in your hand is just a means to make those cards pop. You get about 24 turns over the course of the game as opposed to the 7ish in Root and less in Oath, so there should be some time and space for players to perform small actions building up resources for big actions.
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May 6, 2024 16:13
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Because planetary resources are free actions, and everybody wants those but you also have a pretty tight limit, I love the narrative / political implications when someone really wants Fuel and you care less and in a heavy Battle round they come take your Fuel planet and you're like "I'm not happy about it, obviously, but this really doesn't need to escalate, does it?"
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May 6, 2024 16:37
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I went to Gaming Hoopla this weekend in Illinois, and ended up with way too much Silent Auction wins than I intended.
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May 6, 2024 17:01
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Played Wyrmspan last night and it's certainly a Wingspan Game. I would say it's probably a better game than Wingspan in general, there's a lot more engine building and running your engine is more satisfying. But the side effect of that is that it plays pretty long. 3 player game with rules took around 2 hours and I could see in 4 player games the times between your turns becoming pretty excessive because there's no interaction at all as far as I could see. It leans into the single player solitaire even more than wingspan. There don't seem to be any triggered effects like the pink powers in Wingspan so you have zero interest in anything anyone else does. There is a little competition for the quest board goals but you can't really do anything about someone else doing them before you. But you do a lot more on your turn, and it does help with the just lay eggs thing, even though I won I spent my last 2 actions laying eggs.
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May 6, 2024 18:21
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Mr. Squishy posted:Oh, is Arcs joining the canon of games where you start the rules teach by asking if they know Hearts? I did that for Cat in the Box the other day, and the guy said "no." I went through a long explanation of how trick-taking games work, he figured it out, and then after we'd finished the game, he said, "This was super-fun, but if it didn't have the black-suits gimmick, I wouldn't enjoy it." ...uh, okay?  I promise, other trick-taking games are fun.
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May 6, 2024 18:58
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I’ve only played once but it felt pretty competitive on both the goals board and the dragon guild. Not that I would exactly describe it as “interaction” but we were definitely looking at each others boards a lot to figure out if we needed to step up or give up on some goal, and there was influence of action order/desire to build guild movement to try not to get locked out of certain spots for the guild bonuses. For our particular guild it seemed like it would be pretty nuts if someone got both 3 point per column bonuses. It definitely seemed to be an upgrade to Wingspan in almost every way (some of which were already addressed in expansions). A little less getting randomly screwed by not having the right food available, you don’t lose actions as the game goes on so your later turns aren’t just on rails based on your initial setup, you aren’t incentivized to just spam egg row, and it just generally felt like there was a larger decision space. On the other hand, it does take longer, and I’m not sure that I like that some people can end up with many more turns (coins) than others, even though I’m the guy most likely to be pushing for bonus coins.
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May 6, 2024 19:22
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panko posted:one precious petal in the unfolding flower of a hansa group’s meta is setting up early offices in the cities adjacent to the 2-length routes and trying to spam out plates/force others to stop you from doing so Won my first game of HT last night by doing exactly this in a 4p game, on the routes attached to the privilegium improvement town  69 points no less 
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May 6, 2024 21:36
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million dollar mack posted:Won my first game of HT last night by doing exactly this in a 4p game, on the routes attached to the privilegium improvement town The Stade / Hamburg part of the base map is IMO the most important to prevent a single player from monopolising, privilege and bag upgrades are obviously not as highly demanded as actions but they're still really important and getting a solid lockdown on the privilege upgrade in particular is game winning. The people I've played with are probably still overvaluing action upgrades.
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May 6, 2024 22:35
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I finally got around to trying HEAT and how heat cards move and work was a real mindfuck. Assuming that "heat" in the "engine" was the bad & limiting part (assuming it represents, you know, literal heating of the engine due to the stress you're putting on it, there's only so much heat an engine can take, letting the engine cool is good, etc etc) really got in the way of grasping the mechanics.
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May 6, 2024 23:47
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Ive heard of people putting the heat cards in the engine section on the player board face down and then flipping them face up when they go in the discard to show that the engine is “generating” heat
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May 7, 2024 01:40
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ActingPower posted:I did that for Cat in the Box the other day, and the guy said "no." I went through a long explanation of how trick-taking games work, he figured it out, and then after we'd finished the game, he said, "This was super-fun, but if it didn't have the black-suits gimmick, I wouldn't enjoy it." I had a similar experience teaching that, but I went into it expecting to have to explain trick taking so I brought along a normal deck of cards for a visual example which worked surprisingly well.
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May 7, 2024 13:54
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