tberton

Another question about wars: when my liege goes to war, do my armies automatically go to help them? I haven't seen anything of mine physically moving around on the board, but are there modifiers or something that drain resources from me? What if I'm my liege's marshal?

I was just re-listening to Mario's Picnic and it got me thinking about what an FFG-made digital Netrunner implementation would look like. I think something where when you bought a Data Pack, you got a code that got you a digital version of every card and there was an online marketplace where you could buy alternate art (fan-made and FFG-commisioned) for your digital cards would be really sweet. And of course a nice, clean implementation of the actual game. A digital version of the game that was easy to get into would be so nice, especially since there are so many janky aspects of the Netrunner core rules that would be great to have a computer handle.

From Chris Remo's Twitter.

It's going to be especially good in RP, because they literally cannot satisfy it's condition. Unless they trash it, you're getting 2 credits a turn.

Also, Steve has admitted that My So-Called Life is one of the main thematic inspirations.

I feel like this is exactly his point.

With reference to the "kids are violent" thing, my brother once nearly gouged my eye out with a wooden rhinoceros after watching Ninja Turtles.

I played an RP deck at Plugged-In revolving mostly around Hourglass, but it didn't work too well. I don't think I played it very well, but I also think I would have done better with Pad Campaign over Dedicated Server. Also, my agenda mix needs work, as I'm not certain that Fetal AI really fits. Really, I think I'm going to need the upcoming Sundew, Inazuma and Caprice Nisei to make this deck really work.

This would make me buy an Xbone.

This is what I got from it too. He's saying that Gone Home is nice, but that video games can do a whole lot more and that developers should be taking the game as a challenge, not as a change to dust off their hands and say "we're done here, folks." He's not saying that he wants Gone Home to be more pretentious. In a way, he's saying that Gone Home is already pretentious, in that it pretends to have more depth than it really does. He's saying that he'd like to see something like Gone Home with more substance. The Bioshock comment was relevant because it's an example of how people who play and make games are quick to jump at any seemingly deep aspect of a game and ignore its shallower aspects.

Celebrity Gift is really good, but you have to use it carefully and strategically. It works best with Jackson Howard so you can draw up. Are you playing the first ID or the second? It sounds like you're not trying to kill the Runner, in which case you should be playing the second.

That's lame. They're lame. Risk Legacy is, bar none, the most exciting board game I've ever played and I've played a he k of a lot of them. Anybody who's interested in games or game design is doing themselves a disservice by not playing it.

This is a dumb thing to say, but has anybody else noticed that Sean is incapable of correctly pronouncing "ostensibly"?

This blog series on BGG goes through pros and cons for every card in the Core Set (and a couple from the first Data Pack, What Lies Ahead). It's very good at teaching you basic strategy.

Hey, did you guys ever play more Risk Legacy? The packet we just opened in my campaign was insane. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on the game.

I'm excited about this and will listen as soon as I get home. Suggestions for other guests: Jon Shafer Kim Swift Jenova Chen Greg Kasavin

I never played on OCTGN, but I imagine that would be a bad way to learn the game. I think the best way to learn it is to buy a physical copy and play it with a friend, especially since OCTGN has all currently released cards (and even some unreleased ones), which is probably overwhelming. Starting with the Core Set would be much more approachable.

You should read this review of the game by Ian Bogost. It's the best piece of writing I've read on Gone Home, even though I really love the game.

ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

I'm right in reading this weeks episode title, "His Boss Encounter," with the same cadence as "His Dark Materials," right? Because that's the only way my brain reads it.

That would be really interesting.

I guess I'm just not as into games on that grand, abstracted scale. On a conceptual level, at least. I can think of plenty of games that I love that are fairly abstracted out, but ideally I prefer it when games are more specific.

Huh, I've never heard that about the Haida and I've taken many, very critical Canadian history courses. But none of them were particularly focused on the west coast, so maybe that's why. On the topic of the Shut Up & Sit Down review, that did a pretty good job of illustrating the things I like and dislike about Twilight Struggle: the core mechanics of the game - operation points, scoring cards, coups, the DEFCON track - really do feel like they recreate the brinksmanship of the Cold War. However, the events, while they all refer to real historical events, feel like painted on theme, which is really too bad. Also, those opening points about how you really play as the spirits of communism and capitalism, not any one ruler, reminded me of something that's probably relevant to our earlier discussion: I think its always best if you can put the player in the shoes of a specific person, whether real or fictional. Making the player a historical force brings up all sorts of difficult issues like historical inevitability and stuff that are much easier to sidestep if you specify who the player is. I feel like that specificity also creates a deeper connection with a game's theme.

Agreed. I like Jake's Nintendo talk.

Fair enough. I didn't actually mean to emphasize the moral equivalency thing as much as I did. To clarify, I do not think the US in the Cold War was as bad as Germany in WWII. However, I do think that both committed atrocities (and heck, the US and the Allies committed atrocities in World War II as well) and I think it's interesting and informative for us to question why some atrocities are more acceptable to us than others. Unfortunately, I think often the answer is "these ones were committed by people like me and those ones weren't." Maybe I misunderstood what Ananda was saying in the podcast, but it seemed like he was suggesting a game where you play as Germany in the interwar period, not as Hitler himself, which would be the same distinction, no?