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Ilor posted:I was amazed at the number of purveyors of "luxury dice" at the con this year. Some gorgeous stuff, but most of it looked like it was either moderately fragile or so heavy/solid as to be able to dent my loving table. There was one dude there hawking dice made from all sorts of metals and semi-precious stones, including mossy obsidian and "al-yoo-minium." I was like, "wait, did you just say, 'al-yoo-minium?'" He replied that they were an Australian company and therefore allowed to use the Queen's English. I stopped him there and walked away. That dude was a prick. There were two people looking at the amethyst dice and asking each other how they could be priced so "low" (it was $85 for ~5 dice) since it was a precious stone. I overheard them and explained that the stones they were using for the dice had a bunch of inclusions and were super light in color, making them lower "grade" when it came to jewelry. The dice guy comes over and says that they only use the highest quality gemstones to make their dice and they might have to send back all the amethyst they got recently because it was too low of a grade. Yeah, sure. Whatever buddy.
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Aug 6, 2018 18:58
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Bottom Liner posted:I would have needed at least 3 to satiate me. P. Bros and beer was the only cure for my sickness. You had a sickness, and the only cure was MORE MEAT. Meat Sweats really change a man.
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Aug 6, 2018 20:01
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Ilor posted:I was amazed at the number of purveyors of "luxury dice" at the con this year. Some gorgeous stuff, but most of it looked like it was either moderately fragile or so heavy/solid as to be able to dent my loving table. There was one dude there hawking dice made from all sorts of metals and semi-precious stones, including mossy obsidian and "al-yoo-minium." I was like, "wait, did you just say, 'al-yoo-minium?'" He replied that they were an Australian company and therefore allowed to use the Queen's English. I stopped him there and walked away.  PANZER DICE! MADE FROM 100% REAL DEAD PANZERS!!1!
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Aug 6, 2018 20:05
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On the drive home from GenCon and I want to go back. I bought less games but more RPG accessories this year. Though I did end up getting the Monsterpocalypse reboot because giant monsters wrestling is my poo poo. Highlight of the con for me was either the 4e game where I was able to shut down half the enemies in the last encounter while the party slaughtered them, OR the Sworn to Serve Megagame. I highly recommend doing a Megagame if you get the chance. Also the foam sword fighting was fun even if I'm relatively bad at it.
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Aug 6, 2018 21:35
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Moriatti posted:Also the foam sword fighting was fun even if I'm relatively bad at it. Hone your skills at the Introduction to Sword Fighting martial arts class beforehand.
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Aug 6, 2018 21:37
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True to form, goons ruin everything by getting Hitler elected. Twice. See you all next year 
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Aug 6, 2018 21:51
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Ceebees posted:
I'm glad I didn't see this, because I would have lost $300 or whatever they were charging for it.
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Aug 6, 2018 22:39
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TheHoosier posted:True to form, goons ruin everything by getting Hitler elected. Twice. Goons ruin everything. Also, it was three times. In a row.
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Aug 6, 2018 23:01
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Did anyone else go to the 'stume contest? The guy next to me never realized that that big group near the end was doing a bit and got increasingly angry about them using the event to "promote their book".Philthy posted:It's just too busy for us. Maybe we're getting too old for it, I dunno. Trying to demo games we wanted to buy was surprisingly difficult as well. Guild Ball, we wanted to check it out, and pick up the game and two guilds. But they ran a demo at noon for a general audience and that was it, so we passed. Renegade looked really cool, but they only did demos at 4pm, which didn't line up with our schedule. I just simply asked if I could buy one of the sealed boxes that they have about 8 sitting there and they said that was demo-only. They didn't know where we could go buy it. I never found out, either. I don't care anymore because we were planning to play them at night with some pickup groups, but we ended up with Firefly Adventures which was cool. They let us buy that after demoing it. Ugh, I wanted to check out Guild Ball but their learn to play event entailed buying a guild starter for like $54 and assembling it in the gaming hall. No thanks!
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Aug 6, 2018 23:05
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The Moon Monster posted:Did anyone else go to the 'stume contest? The guy next to me never realized that that big group near the end was doing a bit and got increasingly angry about them using the event! 
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Aug 7, 2018 00:18
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GenConspicuous Consumption.
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Aug 7, 2018 00:49
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Alien Rope Burn posted:GenConspicuous Consumption. drat, I saw a DropMix banner near the Upper Deck booth and went looking for a demo but couldn't find it setup anywhere. I've been wanting to try it out before I buy it on Amazon and if I'd seen it for sale there I probably would've impulse bought it. I kinda forgot all about The Witcher RPG until I saw your pic. Dealer Hall sensory overload is real.
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Aug 7, 2018 01:01
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Lawen posted:drat, I saw a DropMix banner near the Upper Deck booth and went looking for a demo but couldn't find it setup anywhere. I've been wanting to try it out before I buy it on Amazon and if I'd seen it for sale there I probably would've impulse bought it. Upper Deck wasn't even selling anything associated with it when I asked, it was just an ad for branded merch coming out at some point under their banner. I got it at the auction as probably my most impulsiest moment of the whole convention. I meant to ask Mattel about some Transformers promo card and just forgot, I'll have to see if the internet can guide me on that.
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Aug 7, 2018 01:15
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Alien Rope Burn posted:GenConspicuous Consumption. Is that a ussr rifts book? How is it?
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Aug 7, 2018 01:25
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Ceebees posted:
I almost loving bought these. Well, I almost asked if they were for sale. But the booth was busy. Deviant fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 7, 2018 01:33
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Alien Rope Burn posted:GenConspicuous Consumption.
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Aug 7, 2018 01:56
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OB_Juan posted:Is that a ussr rifts book? How is it? I've only done a flip-through, but it's relatively decent for a Rifts book so far, at least on the sliding scale that Palladium books exist on. Issues with Soviet-era imagery aside, the Soviets were the most interesting faction in the older Russia books for Rifts, and this expands the original material. Ilor posted:How did you manage to buy multiple Palladium products without someone staging an intervention? Did your friends leave you unsupervised for too long? Are you kidding? I got a text on the first day on the con from a friend who'd gotten an issue of The Rifter for me. My friends are a bunch of enablers. That being said, all I did was use the traditional GenCon Palladium coupon to pick up the newest book at a discount and then found three books for $5 in the auction consignment store. Not exactly breaking the bank on these.
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Aug 7, 2018 02:22
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Upper Deck wasn't even selling anything associated with it when I asked, it was just an ad for branded merch coming out at some point under their banner. I got it at the auction as probably my most impulsiest moment of the whole convention.
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Aug 7, 2018 03:21
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Alien Rope Burn posted:GenConspicuous Consumption. Lemme know how the Witcher RPG is. I was thinking about that one and the Dark Eye RPG, but I haven't even unpacked my other RPG books after moving... 
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Aug 7, 2018 03:24
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Dr. Quarex posted:How did I not recognize you bidding on this, is my question? Honestly that was my favorite "what the hell is this and how does it exist" moment of auctioneering I can't say! That was also one of those embarrassing "oh I was bidding against somebody I know" moments that happens in the auction. There was a wealthy guy we brought along from the local gaming club, I think this was his first GenCon and he bid on literally anything if it was under two digits in price when I was watching him. He refused my offer to room with him, saying he didn't have enough room- now I know he wasn't just talking nonsense, I suppose. As for what it is precisely, well, I'll figure that out soon enough. I just know everything I've gotten from music game developer Harmonix ever since Amplitude is at the very least interesting and generally overambitious, so I'm looking forward to it when I have the time.
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Aug 7, 2018 03:46
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It's a pretty neat toy, I'd be hesitant to call it much of a game. You place cards on a small lane of 5 spaces, with each card representing an element of a song, and a 30-40 second loop of a chunk of that element of a particular song begins to play, you play more cards and build up a kind of mashup, with the board dynamically adjusting BPM and pitch/speed to level things out. Its a lot of fun at parties and gatherings or if you're doing drugs. There is a couple game modes, but we found them a lil bleh compared to just dumping all your cards out and jamming. The main downside is its a pain in the arse to get more cards, they're overly expensive and the booster pack format is terrible for this kind of thing. Some songs and loops are pretty bad outside of a specific BPM band too. Nemesis Of Moles fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 7, 2018 03:53
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I've only done a flip-through, but it's relatively decent for a Rifts book so far, at least on the sliding scale that Palladium books exist on. Issues with Soviet-era imagery aside, the Soviets were the most interesting faction in the older Russia books for Rifts, and this expands the original material. I bought a few copies of the defunct Rifts CCG starter deluxe box, walked over to Kevin to get him to sign it, and after asking where I got it and what I paid for it, he sent one of his people to go buy the store out of the rest of them.
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Aug 7, 2018 05:00
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Lawen posted:I picked up Root and got to play it a couple times, including one game with some goons; really liked its cute theme laid on top of a pretty meaty area control game with asynchronous player mechanics. I agree though that the first two rounds sheet could've done a better job explaining WHY you were making those moves and where to go from turn 3 on. There were also a few things in the rules that weren't entirely clear, hopefully they'll release an updated rules PDF or someone on BGG will write some better player/teaching aids. Can you expand on this, here or in boardgame general thread? The rules editor for Leder games is a goon and they would absolutely be interested in correcting any vaugeness in the rules. Philthy posted:I'm glad I didn't see this, because I would have lost $300 or whatever they were charging for it. I heard those were silent auctioned, and someone who bid $400 was told “don’t contact us, we’ll contact you” pretty curtly. Some wehraboo probably dropped $$$$ on it Fellis fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 7, 2018 05:52
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theironjef posted:I bought a few copies of the defunct Rifts CCG starter deluxe box, walked over to Kevin to get him to sign it, and after asking where I got it and what I paid for it, he sent one of his people to go buy the store out of the rest of them. Bad quest reward, dude. No wonder you went out of business. (Even Kevin Siembieda would probably have done much better)
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Aug 7, 2018 14:48
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Great time, thanks for all the games in the JW; it was fun to bust out a 9 person Deception game even with a groupthinked cumrag being one of the potential murder weapons. A lot of rousing discussion in that one and playing with the allies added from the expansion I wasn't totally sold on root, but likely for the same reason i wasn't on Vast - new players (inc. me) not experienced enough to act as checks on all the players instead of just the most obvious straightforward one (the cats) Blood on the Clocktower seemed very fascinating from the one round i played, i'm unlikely to get it because 6 players is an even taller order than 5 for me, but if it's cheap enough i might be willing to go in on the kickstarter later this year. I am slightly intrigued by the Arkham 2e as 1e is full of annoying fiddly mechanics and i have a weird addiction to these bloated games in the world. House of Danger CYOA goodness for only 25 bucks was fun, and Bananimals will always be a thing to me now I picked up Spirit Island finally for full price since it never stocks at my usual locations.
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Aug 7, 2018 15:33
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Fellis posted:Can you expand on this, here or in boardgame general thread? The rules editor for Leder games is a goon and they would absolutely be interested in correcting any vaugeness in the rules. We followed the two turn guide to start and noted that it seems to assume that you have certain cards already. We ended up just pretending we did until we got the third round.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:54
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Fellis posted:I heard those were silent auctioned, and someone who bid $400 was told “don’t contact us, we’ll contact you” pretty curtly. Some wehraboo probably dropped $$$$ on it Specifically $1488 I bet 
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Aug 7, 2018 17:05
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nashona posted:We followed the two turn guide to start and noted that it seems to assume that you have certain cards already. We ended up just pretending we did until we got the third round. Yeah, if they'd had a blurb like "For this demo, you will need X" or "Please draw the following cards: Marquise X, Alliance Y, etc." that would've worked a lot better. We played it after doing the setup on the base cards, including the options (e.g., I was Eyrie and choose the Charismatic leader card, so I was never sure if I should be recruiting the extra troops on demo turns 1 & 2).
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Aug 7, 2018 17:13
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Hey all! I'm the rules editor / usability dev for Leder Games, and I'd be glad to answer any Qs you have here, through PM, or on BGG. As far as the walkthrough sheets go, the game does indeed prompt you to start with certain cards and set up in a certain way, as detailed on page 3 of the learn-to-play guide and the walkthrough setup cards.
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Aug 7, 2018 17:25
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I'm reading the mixed reviews of Nyctophobia in here and I definitely lean more towards "good" than "bad" but I definitely understand people being less inclined to purchase. The shades are a gimmick, but one that really does make the game unlike anything else I've played before, and forces the team to communicate and remember their moves. (The hunter being able to see isn't that broken, because their movement is more prescribed by the cards and the presence of the noise token.) I can definitely see replayability as an issue; there aren't that many different scenarios, so if you have a small group or a group that you play with very frequently, you could pretty much hit all the major permutations and have the game solved. (Although I guess you have all the pieces to make your own.) All that being said, there is a special sort of tension that comes about when moving your piece blindly, although, to me, the most tense part of the game is between turns, when you can't see the board (and if you're hiding, can't talk), and the rest of the players are doing their thing and you're pretty sure one of them is doing something stupid but you don't know what or how. It's fun. I might try to buy it because I want to play it again (and I want to be the hunter at least once) and I think it's not very expensive. If I don't get to play it again, though, that's fine, too. I'm definitely glad to have demoed it, though. Also, yeah, The Mind is good. Not like "holy crap, this is amazing" good, but it's way better than you'd first think. Like, I thought it was pretty stupid and then I played a round and realized I was grossly underrating it. Coupled with the fact that it's small/portable and easy to teach, I'm definitely going to buy a copy if for no other reason than to throw it into my bag and take to events.
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Aug 7, 2018 17:39
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Thanks to all of you that stopped by the bee booth, said hi, picked up pins, etc. It was great to see so many goons come say hi and that they liked what I was doing. It really helped a lot.  Gen Con was great and I think it was a success. We increased our mailing list by over 150%, and upping that number was our number 1 goal. Almost everyone who played the game took a card on their own which was great, though I would have preferred they sign up so we can just email them once the kickstarter goes live. Bee pins didn't sell out instantly like everyone was clamoring about before the show but they did very well. We sold well over half and I traded maybe 30 of them for other pins. I definitely have a new respect for vendors at Gen Con. I mean, I always knew their job was tough, but Thursday in particular was just downright overwhelming. I wasn't sure I was going to survive through Sunday but it got easier for everything but my feet. This was definitely the most exhausting Gen Con I have been to and that's saying a lot since it's always a tiring affair. Definitely didn't have problems sleeping this time around.
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Aug 7, 2018 18:01
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Caedar posted:Hey all! I'm the rules editor / usability dev for Leder Games, and I'd be glad to answer any Qs you have here, through PM, or on BGG. As far as the walkthrough sheets go, the game does indeed prompt you to start with certain cards and set up in a certain way, as detailed on page 3 of the learn-to-play guide and the walkthrough setup cards. Personally, I would have liked a little explanation WHY we were taking the actions listed on the walkthrough sheet. It felt weird starting the game with "I get some wood and build a sawmill with it somehow and for some reason"
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Aug 7, 2018 18:19
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Slimy Hog posted:Personally, I would have liked a little explanation WHY we were taking the actions listed on the walkthrough sheet. It felt weird starting the game with "I get some wood and build a sawmill with it somehow and for some reason" That's fair. The idea, as outlined in the learn-to-play, is that one player has read the rules and can answer such "why" questions as they come up, since everyone is going to have different questions. The walkthrough sheet alone is not sufficient to teach both the mechanics and the strategic reasoning behind Root, since it's a rather intricate game. Additionally, the faction overview cards and the faction board backs give more grounding in why a faction does what it does.
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Aug 7, 2018 19:16
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Caedar posted:That's fair. The idea, as outlined in the learn-to-play, is that one player has read the rules and can answer such "why" questions as they come up, since everyone is going to have different questions. The walkthrough sheet alone is not sufficient to teach both the mechanics and the strategic reasoning behind Root, since it's a rather intricate game. Additionally, the faction overview cards and the faction board backs give more grounding in why a faction does what it does. Well if I actually READ the content that you created for me to learn how to play how would I complain to you on the internet!?!?! Honestly, it was late at night, my group had been drinking and none of us had seen as much as a demo of the game when we tried to play. Hopefully it will work better when my buddy brings it to game night. Slimy Hog fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 7, 2018 19:22
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Yeah I'll echo that the walkthrough sheet is nice in theory but in practice after the two rounds we we're just saying "uh, why did any of that happen". The upshot is that the rules themselves are very well written and layed out so after reading the reference guide I was right up to speed
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Aug 7, 2018 19:33
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CellBlock posted:I'm reading the mixed reviews of Nyctophobia in here and I definitely lean more towards "good" than "bad" but I definitely understand people being less inclined to purchase. The shades are a gimmick, but one that really does make the game unlike anything else I've played before, and forces the team to communicate and remember their moves. (The hunter being able to see isn't that broken, because their movement is more prescribed by the cards and the presence of the noise token.) Your points on Nyctophobia are really fair. Our demo leader seemed like he didn't care much or didn't know much about the game so that may have had a big factor. Ultimately I think it's just a really divisive game. As for The Mind, I encourage everyone to play up to Level 3 or 4 before forming an opinion. With one or two cards in your hand it doesn't seem as fun but once you get rolling it's a loving blast.
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Aug 7, 2018 19:39
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I think Nyctophobia is all gimmick no game, The Mind is all gimmick but still enough interaction and tension to make it worth playing. I said it all weekend, but Nycto was way more fun to watch people do than to play it yourself. Also if you tap or nod your head as a signaling rhythm in The Mind you're cheating damnit (I've seen a lot of tables silently bobbing their heads, etc).
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Aug 7, 2018 19:55
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sportsgenius86 posted:Your points on Nyctophobia are really fair. Our demo leader seemed like he didn't care much or didn't know much about the game so that may have had a big factor. Ultimately I think it's just a really divisive game. Yeah, the demo guy I had was great. He really got into the verbals on his cards and taunting hidden players to try to get them to break cover between turns. (The demos I watched had a different guy, and he was pretty clearly getting tired of doing it by late on Friday.) Other highlight of the con for me: Blood on the Clocktower - Social deduction game in the vein of werewolf/mafia, but with a much more active moderator (The "Storyteller") and continued player participation after death. Their base game is great, and their alternate versions in the pipeline are nuts (characters that only appear to die; that swap roles with other people, etc.) and I've only played twice, so I'm definitely not fully finding the flaws, but to me, it's that sort of game with a lot of the flaws ironed out. (No such thing as just a "vanilla" role; getting killed doesn't mean you're waiting for the finish or leaving.) I want this, as the grimoire looks really pretty, too, and it looks as fun to be the Storyteller as it is to play, but they said it's likely to be 80-100 dollars on kickstarter, which is kind of a lot. (Maybe that's Australian?) I'd probably only ever get to play it at conventions, so I'm hesitant to buy it, but I really want to support these guys. Also sweet - got my face 3d scanned and bought a warlock mini of myself. Can't wait to get it (and find someone to paint it for me). Oh, and Jeremy Hambly got punched, which was great.
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Aug 7, 2018 19:58
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nesbit37 posted:BEES Glad you had a good con dude! Still owe you a beer. Here's a pic I took when I stopped by if you missed it  CellBlock posted:Blood on the Clocktower I heard a lot of good things about this but never saw it, need to try it out.
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Aug 7, 2018 19:59
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Another great Gen Con! I almost picked up Root and the expansion on Thursday, but ended up passing on it for fear it was a little too involved for my wife. I'm having some serious regrets about passing on it, so I'll have to snag it later on. That and My Little Scythe were the two games that surprised me at the Con but I ended up not getting. My friends and I had an AMAZING Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG session and a Sentinels Comics RPG session, both of which prompted us to go pick up the systems and slot them in for future campaigns. We did the Pathfinder Mega Event for the first time (on the card game side) and had a ton of fun. We always do 4 slots of Pathfinder card game every year, and it was fun to do the big event this time. Tried out Scythe for the first time and enjoyed it a lot. The only bad experience was doing a demo of Dark Souls the board game. The person running our demo was TERRIBLE, didn't explain things well, and the scenario setup was "made to kind of screw over the assassin" which was fun since I got to play the assassin. Luckily we died early and bailed out for more dealer hall time. I had a really small haul this year, but walked about with Star Realms, Hero Realms, Tiny Epic Zombies, and a bunch of RPG materials. I picked up Embers of the Forgotten Kingdom after not hearing about it before--it seems like a great supplement.
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