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Bottom Liner posted:Yeah, my biggest criticism of Dominion is the vp cards and scoring. In other games they do something, but in this, to win you have to fill your deck with them and spend your last few turns not doing much. That's literally the point of the game. All of the cards that do stuff are worth nothing at the end and all the cards that make you win are blank and gum up the works. It's an intentional design choice to force you to make tough choices about when to stop building your engine and start buying Provinces. Fat Samurai posted:I'm the bestest evil anime puppeteer with time powers that ever wielded a script and now my friends hate me because I keep gloating over their pitiful efforts to break my trap. I need to play Tragedy Looper more.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:46
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Let me put Dominion interactivity this way: the best attack is buying a Province. Or Goons. But usually buying a Province.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:54
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Goons is a pretty good attack.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:56
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Some Numbers posted:That's literally the point of the game. All of the cards that do stuff are worth nothing at the end and all the cards that make you win are blank and gum up the works. It's an intentional design choice to force you to make tough choices about when to stop building your engine and start buying Provinces. That being said, VotK's scoring system is fantastic. You don't have cards that gum up your deck, but if you want to win the game, you have to consume the very cards that make your deck work well. The turning point is a lot of fun, as you have to choose when to start cannabalizing key parts of your deck for points.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:56
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How to tell if a deck building game is good at a glance: If VP is attached to functional cards, it's probably poo poo. If VP is attached to functional cards, and stronger cards are worth more VP, the game is poo poo and was made by idiot fuckers.
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Sep 29, 2015 18:01
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SkeletonHero posted:How to tell if a deck building game is good at a glance: See: Ascension.
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Sep 29, 2015 18:03
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SkeletonHero posted:How to tell if a deck building game is good at a glance: Counterpoint: Eminent Domain
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Sep 29, 2015 18:07
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Bottom Liner posted:Yeah, my biggest criticism of Dominion is the vp cards and scoring. In other games they do something, but in this, to win you have to fill your deck with them and spend your last few turns not doing much. Isn't that true of most games that have a victory point mechanic, though? Anything you do on the last turn will only score points, it won't benefit you in future turns because there are none.
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Sep 29, 2015 18:16
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Isn't that true of most games that have a victory point mechanic, though? Anything you do on the last turn will only score points, it won't benefit you in future turns because there are none. No, the problem is that as you start piling on VPs, you draw more hands of three Provinces or whatever, which means you get to sit there staring at a green hand while your opponent plays a lengthy Bridge combo to buy two Provinces. It's particularly bad if you're playing with a group of new players, so every turn takes longer than it should and bad hands are more likely because you're still learning. Of course, games that just makes VP cards do stuff take away the trade-off and don't replace it, which is worse. But it's still a legitimate complaint about Dominion.
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Sep 29, 2015 18:26
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Dominion feels far more interactive to me than both RFTG games, even just using the base set. I know people around here don't like http://www.playdominion.com, but the tutorial does a good job of explaining basic strategy. It even warns about the trap that Bottom Liner and friends fell into: that snatching up low-value Victory cards early on will hurt more than help. Once you understand the strategies better, the endgame is not simply dragging it out doing nothing--you may be hoping your engine hits 8 so you can finish off the Provinces, but you also may be battling it out for Duchies + Dukes, or you may be grabbing every lovely card you can to maximize your Gardens, or you may even be buying up Estates after you had trashed them early on. I looked up that recommended first game setup and it's boring as heck. Woodcutter sucks. Workshop w/o Gardens sucks. And it's missing most of my favorite base cards - Chapel, Throne Room, Festival, Laboratory, Witch...
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Sep 29, 2015 18:36
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If you've drawn hands of 3 Provinces multiple times, then either you've already won or you've done something horribly wrong.
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Sep 29, 2015 18:39
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SkeletonHero posted:How to tell if a deck building game is good at a glance: VotK proves both of these wrong. Some Numbers posted:That's literally the point of the game. All of the cards that do stuff are worth nothing at the end and all the cards that make you win are blank and gum up the works. It's an intentional design choice to force you to make tough choices about when to stop building your engine and start buying Provinces.
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Sep 29, 2015 18:43
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PerniciousKnid posted:No, the problem is that as you start piling on VPs, you draw more hands of three Provinces or whatever, which means you get to sit there staring at a green hand while your opponent plays a lengthy Bridge combo to buy two Provinces. It's particularly bad if you're playing with a group of new players, so every turn takes longer than it should and bad hands are more likely because you're still learning. But unless they person who played the lengthy Bridge combo to buy two Provinces is way behind, that means that he correctly didn't green too soon. I mean if you don't like it that's fine but the entire core of Dominion is that getting VP hurts your efficiency, so you have to figure out where the trade off is. It wouldn't work otherwise. The fact that it leads to some dead hands late game means that you didn't plan properly to end the game, and now your opponents have an opportunity to catch up with the remaining Provinces and Duchies. It's not a legitimate complaint because the complaint is "I want the core gameplay to be different". (for reference, I am using "legitimate complaint" to mean "is legitimately a design flaw"; of course you are welcome to not like something about a game even if it works as intended)
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Sep 29, 2015 18:47
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StashAugustine posted:Counterpoint: Eminent Domain Only for Technologies, and that's because the requirements and opportunity costs of the higher tiers are so high, they would be worthless without more VP attached to them because the game will likely end before you've gotten to use them enough to make them worth the investment. The other main sources of VP are Planets, which do follow the rule of 'the more it does, the less VP it's worth, and visa versa', and Influence chits, which do absolutely nothing but being VP. Bottom Liner posted:VotK proves both of these wrong. If anything, VotK proves both of them correct, since you only score for those powerful cards by destroying their power.
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Sep 29, 2015 18:53
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SkeletonHero posted:How to tell if a deck building game is good at a glance: Counterpoint: Ascension is fun, and good, while Dominion is dry as dogshit, and bad
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Sep 29, 2015 19:28
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Soothing Vapors posted:Counterpoint: Ascension is fun, and bad, while Dominion is dry as dogshit, and good Counterpoint
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Sep 29, 2015 19:30
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I'm writing a short piece on the influence of women designers in board games for a class (and for my own interest), and don't really know where to start looking for anything other than, like, a laundry list of games designed by women. Does anyone know of any other writing that's been done on the topic? Some quick googling really only turned up things like geek lists, not really things I could cite as popular sources, let alone academic ones (but that can come later). Honestly I'm not precisely sure what I'm looking for so anything you have might spark some ideas. I'll probably have to draw comparisons to similar industries with more research, like video gaming, when it comes to academic options because there really just isn't anything out there on board games from what I've seen.
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Sep 29, 2015 19:33
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Countblanc posted:I'm writing a short piece on the influence of women designers in board games for a class (and for my own interest), and don't really know where to start looking for anything other than, like, a laundry list of games designed by women. Does anyone know of any other writing that's been done on the topic? Some quick googling really only turned up things like geek lists, not really things I could cite as popular sources, let alone academic ones (but that can come later). Honestly I'm not precisely sure what I'm looking for so anything you have might spark some ideas. I'll probably have to draw comparisons to similar industries with more research, like video gaming, when it comes to academic options because there really just isn't anything out there on board games from what I've seen. I'd say blogs are your best bet, unfortunately. There's a severe lack of books about board gaming. Maybe try Rachel Simmons.
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Sep 29, 2015 19:38
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Countblanc posted:I'm writing a short piece on the influence of women designers in board games for a class (and for my own interest), and don't really know where to start looking for anything other than, like, a laundry list of games designed by women. Does anyone know of any other writing that's been done on the topic? Some quick googling really only turned up things like geek lists, not really things I could cite as popular sources, let alone academic ones (but that can come later). Honestly I'm not precisely sure what I'm looking for so anything you have might spark some ideas. I'll probably have to draw comparisons to similar industries with more research, like video gaming, when it comes to academic options because there really just isn't anything out there on board games from what I've seen. I'd look through boardgamegeek to find a list of designers and figure out which games have been designed by women. From there, check out the games and either contact the designers directly, or see if they have things like development blogs.
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Sep 29, 2015 19:38
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Seriously, female designers in a niche hobby are probably like rare birds on rare islands. You could probably just send them e-mails and call them up for phone interviews. You could genuinely become the primary source for basically the entire field you are trying to write your paper on. E: And I don't mean that in a condescending way to either you or the designers. It's actually a pretty cool opportunity of pursuit.
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Sep 29, 2015 19:43
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Countblanc posted:I'm writing a short piece on the influence of women designers in board games for a class (and for my own interest), and don't really know where to start looking for anything other than, like, a laundry list of games designed by women. Does anyone know of any other writing that's been done on the topic? Some quick googling really only turned up things like geek lists, not really things I could cite as popular sources, let alone academic ones (but that can come later). Honestly I'm not precisely sure what I'm looking for so anything you have might spark some ideas. I'll probably have to draw comparisons to similar industries with more research, like video gaming, when it comes to academic options because there really just isn't anything out there on board games from what I've seen. Are you still selling Kemet?
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Sep 29, 2015 19:49
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Huxley posted:Seriously, female designers in a niche hobby are probably like rare birds on rare islands. You could probably just send them e-mails and call them up for phone interviews. Ha, no I get you. I was actually going to do that very thing when I wrote my thesis last semester, but panicked at the thought of doing what was basically completely unexplored territory and about a subject matter literally no one in my department understood or thought was notable (granted Gender Studies isn't a huge department but whatever). So now I'm writing a much shorter one with a fraction of the work involved. I'll definitely be doing some primary research - likely interviews - but I need some other stuff too. The general point of the piece is less ethnographic "here's what women have done and that inclusiveness is inherently good" (which I'd argue it is but not in this piece, which is more aimed at people making hiring decisions in businesses rather than laypeople) and more a persuasive "here's the Cold Hard Facts about what women have done and these notable titles which spawned [genre/system/whatever] that is used today and that's why having more women in the field is worth investing in" thing. It's definitely not the perfect piece and I'd like to do more with the topic in the future, but baby steps.
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Sep 29, 2015 19:52
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Indolent Bastard posted:Are you still selling Kemet? Maybe/probably, the best offer I had was for that + tokaido for $50 but I'd have to drive two hours to do it and I'd rather just keep the game with that amount of effort and gas money. PM me if you want.
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Sep 29, 2015 19:53
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Countblanc posted:Ha, no I get you. I was actually going to do that very thing when I wrote my thesis last semester, but panicked at the thought of doing what was basically completely unexplored territory and about a subject matter literally no one in my department understood or thought was notable (granted Gender Studies isn't a huge department but whatever). So now I'm writing a much shorter one with a fraction of the work involved. I'll definitely be doing some primary research - likely interviews - but I need some other stuff too. The general point of the piece is less ethnographic "here's what women have done and that inclusiveness is inherently good" (which I'd argue it is but not in this piece, which is more aimed at people making hiring decisions in businesses rather than laypeople) and more a persuasive "here's the Cold Hard Facts about what women have done and these notable titles which spawned [genre/system/whatever] that is used today and that's why having more women in the field is worth investing in" thing. It's definitely not the perfect piece and I'd like to do more with the topic in the future, but baby steps. It might also be worth looking at large publishing companies to see if there are more women working behind the scenes offering feedback, playtesting, etc. even if their name isn't on the box. Might find something neat about influential women who streamlined marketing or production or something that isn't directly related to game design as well.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:00
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Countblanc posted:Ha, no I get you. I was actually going to do that very thing when I wrote my thesis last semester, but panicked at the thought of doing what was basically completely unexplored territory and about a subject matter literally no one in my department understood or thought was notable (granted Gender Studies isn't a huge department but whatever). So now I'm writing a much shorter one with a fraction of the work involved. I'll definitely be doing some primary research - likely interviews - but I need some other stuff too. The general point of the piece is less ethnographic "here's what women have done and that inclusiveness is inherently good" (which I'd argue it is but not in this piece, which is more aimed at people making hiring decisions in businesses rather than laypeople) and more a persuasive "here's the Cold Hard Facts about what women have done and these notable titles which spawned [genre/system/whatever] that is used today and that's why having more women in the field is worth investing in" thing. It's definitely not the perfect piece and I'd like to do more with the topic in the future, but baby steps. I hear you. I was a Journalism major and worked in newspapers for a decade. I've never written a thing in my life that required citation, but my first instinct to any question like yours is "just call them and ask what the deal is." I can see what you're shooting at, but it seems like even "cold hard facts" are going to be mostly colloquial and are most likely to come from the designers themselves and the people who hired (and can vouch for) them. My idea probably gets you back to the beer-pong table quicker but may not actually fulfill your assignment in a way that satisfies your professor (or whomever). I agree that approaching from a factual angle probably is an easier sell to the faculty. Good luck, though, your subject is interesting and underexplored, and hopefully that's worth something. Beats an over-tread topic any day. And worse comes to worst, I can think of more difficult articles to sell to a site or magazine than, "well-sourced examination of female board-game designers."
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Sep 29, 2015 20:02
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Countblanc posted:completely unexplored territory and about a subject matter literally no one in my department understood or thought was notable (granted Gender Studies isn't a huge department but whatever). I wasn't sure if this sentence was going to end with "gender studies" or "game design".
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Sep 29, 2015 20:08
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Soothing Vapors posted:Counterpoint: Ascension is fun, and good, while Dominion is dry as dogshit, and bad Here's a fun, cheap way to get the Ascension thrill without buying a lot of expansions. Randomly tape numbers to Magic: The Gathering Cards, throw them into a pile, and take turns picking out cards with your friends. After all of the cards are gone, count the numbers. The player with the highest score is the winner.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:18
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Soothing Vapors posted:Counterpoint: Ascension is fun, and good, while Dominion is dry as dogshit, and bad You have a strange concept of what is fun......and good......and dogshit.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:23
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sector_corrector posted:Here's a fun, cheap way to get the Ascension thrill without buying a lot of expansions. Randomly tape numbers to Magic: The Gathering Cards, throw them into a pile, and take turns picking out cards with your friends. After all of the cards are gone, count the numbers. The player with the highest score is the winner. you could do this with like three decks of playing cards. i'll need to check with rutibex to make sure that there's no houserules, but i'm pretty sure this proxy would work.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:24
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Countblanc posted:The general point of the piece is less ethnographic "here's what women have done and that inclusiveness is inherently good" (which I'd argue it is but not in this piece, which is more aimed at people making hiring decisions in businesses rather than laypeople) and more a persuasive "here's the Cold Hard Facts about what women have done and these notable titles which spawned [genre/system/whatever] that is used today and that's why having more women in the field is worth investing in" thing. Well, it's hard to top Elizabeth Magie's influence on the boardgame landscape.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:26
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Help me improve my board game vocabulary, please. I'm trying find a more concise way of saying "this game doesn't do much to discourage me from directing all of my attacks at Jeff instead of Carol even though they would both give me the same advantage, but Jeff made fun of my haircut yesterday so gently caress Jeff". I would say that such a game is "political" but I'm not sure I'm using that term correctly or that others would understand it that way, especially when games can have a "political" theme about Roman senators or Cold War era diplomats or whatever. Is there a different way of saying it?
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Sep 29, 2015 20:39
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quote:"this game doesn't do much to discourage me from directing all of my attacks at Jeff instead of Carol even though they would both give me the same advantage, but Jeff made fun of my haircut yesterday so gently caress Jeff". That's not an exact definition of "political" in boardgame design lingo, but it's functionally very similar. Games with political themes may or may not be political (eg. a co-op Roman Senate game could be all about politics as an idea, but be absolutely "non-political" from a game design sense). To be exact: a multiplayer/multiteam (>2P or teams) game is political to the extent that you can choose to harm or benefit specific other players/teams. Some other factors may mute politics in practice in ways that go along with your wording (eg. in Tash Kalar deathmatch you won't normally keep attacking the same player because you won't need any more blue points), but, yeah, you've got the core idea.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:58
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Medium Style posted:Help me improve my board game vocabulary, please. I'm trying find a more concise way of saying "this game doesn't do much to discourage me from directing all of my attacks at Jeff instead of Carol even though they would both give me the same advantage, but Jeff made fun of my haircut yesterday so gently caress Jeff". I think "political" is good as long as you are clearly using it to explain the style of play rather than the theme, since themes can be all over the place and often have little to do with the actual gameplay. So Twilight Struggle is certainly about politics, but isn't really political since it is only a 2-player game. Maybe confrontational?
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Sep 29, 2015 21:04
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Yeah, the "politics" that are being referred to are the politics of the gaming group and not the theme of the game itself. Like jmzero said, it refers to the ability to help/hurt other players and even more specifically the discussions/reasoning for doing so. Like "Jim almost has the longest road, put the robber on one of his numbers!" type arguments. "Kingmaker" is another term that might come in handy: this specifically refers to a situation in a multi-player game where you are functionally eliminated or extremely far behind, so you make decisions/actions based on who you want to win.
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Sep 29, 2015 21:08
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The term you might be looking for is 'spite-fueled gameplay'.
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Sep 29, 2015 21:14
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Morpheus posted:The term you might be looking for is 'spite-fueled gameplay'. Spite fueled gameplay is pretty big with my regular crowd, we don't do a lot of things to do such pedestrian things as winning. Although that is the dynamic of my group so I reign it in with others i haven't played with
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Sep 29, 2015 21:16
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sector_corrector posted:Here's a fun, cheap way to get the Ascension thrill without buying a lot of expansions. Randomly tape numbers to Magic: The Gathering Cards, throw them into a pile, and take turns picking out cards with your friends. After all of the cards are gone, count the numbers. The player with the highest score is the winner. I will try this and then post really creepy pictures of my wife playing it on BGG
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Sep 29, 2015 21:18
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Morpheus posted:The term you might be looking for is 'spite-fueled gameplay'. We had a player always demand to play Phase 10 even though everyone else hated it, so we started directing every skip at him. I guess that's a certain type of self-correcting gameplay.
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Sep 29, 2015 21:33
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In an upcoming game of Game of Thrones one of the other players is an MRA fuckwit and I fully intend on picking the most opportune time to backstab him into oblivion. Is there a term for that?
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Sep 29, 2015 21:44
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Big McHuge posted:In an upcoming game of Game of Thrones one of the other players is an MRA fuckwit and I fully intend on picking the most opportune time to backstab him into oblivion. Is there a term for that? WJW (Westeros Justice Warrioring)
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Sep 29, 2015 21:45
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