Non-video games

[Salacious Snake]

After seeing reactions, I really want to try D&D 5. 

 

Also I need to try to convince people to play this:

 

 

At least it has a solitaire mode!

[Merus]

WHAT

 

 

 

 

WHAT

 

 

 

 

God I think I'd be able to convince people to play a 'Nam roleplaying game.

[Cordeos]

Are there any good sites for board game news? I want to start hearing about new games in a more efficient way than randomly from friends.

[Twig]

Shut Up & Sit Down.

 

Well I guess that's less "news" and more just reviews, but it's good. EDIT: Guess they do news too since the first entry is news. I mostly just watch the video reviews, though.

[Dewar]

I think pretty much everyone goes to http://boardgamegeek.com/

Some of the people there are pretty... intense, but there's a good variety of users overall.

[Twig]

I find BGG insufferable to navigate so I don't use it as often as I'd like to. ): Mostly use it to check out opinions on something I already know exists.

[Gormongous]

Are there any good sites for board game news? I want to start hearing about new games in a more efficient way than randomly from friends.

 

There's no go-to site for me. I subscribe to the major publishers (FFG, Asmodee/Days of Wonder, Rio Grande, GMT Games, and so on) and keep an eye on the various fan sites. Shut Up & Sit Down is good enough, but relies on their fans' word of mouth and tends to spotlight certain designers a bit much. Fortress: Ameritrash has a broader outlook but is definitely a site in decline. Checking BGG is a last resort because there's so much information and such vulnerability to fads. No good solution, really.

[Bjorn]

Oh man, I totally forgot to post about getting to play One Night Ultimate Werewolf.  I got to play with a friend's copy a couple of weeks ago.  We played a few rounds with 5 people, and it was great.  Didn't quite hold our attention though, as with just five of us (and particularly with the personalities present), it started to play out the same every time.  There were a couple of people who were just a bit too easy to sniff out their roles.  But I can see having 6-7 people being a ton of fun. 

[YoThatLimp]

I have the 5e PHB coming on Wednesday, I am thinking of converting our current characters over to the new version.


 

 

Played some Game of Thrones last night. It was awesome.

 

It is a pretty awesome game!

[undermind9]

I also just got my 5th edition starter book in, i opted for the easier book first since the group interested has never played a pen and paper rpg and a $12 investment with starter tools seems safer if after the first night there is a mutiny.

[Dewar]

Oh man, I totally forgot to post about getting to play One Night Ultimate Werewolf.  I got to play with a friend's copy a couple of weeks ago.  We played a few rounds with 5 people, and it was great.  Didn't quite hold our attention though, as with just five of us (and particularly with the personalities present), it started to play out the same every time.  There were a couple of people who were just a bit too easy to sniff out their roles.  But I can see having 6-7 people being a ton of fun.

Our group found it a bit difficult to figure anything out because no one was giving clues (or at least they weren't after I started shuffling around the room a bit to diguise any other noises.)

[Bjorn]

Our group found it a bit difficult to figure anything out because no one was giving clues (or at least they weren't after I started shuffling around the room a bit to diguise any other noises.)

 

Yeah, that was part of the problem was getting people to give up clues, basically incentivizing them to take risk to win.

[Dewar]

I decided to buy Resistance: Avalon after seeing them play it on Giant Bomb. Since there's a few rounds where people actually have to do something, I'm hoping people will give away more hints.

[taterdactyl]

We did a D&D 5e encounter at GenCon and it was great. I have zero D&D experience, but the bf said he loved it. I believe he said it was similar to 3e as far as it being easier to die, which he is a big fan of. Maybe because he DMs and likes killing his friends? I dunno. Maybe I should be worried now...

[BusbyBerkeley]

My friends have been hooked on my copy of Avalon lately to the point where it's all they'll play. Its fun for a game or two but I really zone out after like the third round with that same group of people, even with switching up the bonus character cards.

I actually prefer BSG because the traitors have more mechanics to hide behind, and the length of the thing makes it a much less throwaway affair. Of course, the length and huge amount of rules means its a lot less accessible and rarely gets played.

Bummer.

[Dewar]

I already have a bunch of really long complicated games to play when there are people that are interested in that. At the moment, I'm trying to find more bite-sized games to entice others that are a little less interested in the crazy stuff.

[Gormongous]

I just got back from a spur-of-the-moment game of Firefly with all three expansions, including the new one called Blue Sun. It's weird for me to have such mixed feelings about a game that I love and enjoy so much. I think it boils down to the increasing amount of time I've come to spend thinking about all games critically, not just the ones I don't like. At its core, Firefly is just Merchants of Venus with the most systematic, apt, and loving application of theme I've ever seen layered on top. Every single turn it feels like you're part of the show, even though it's just a bunch of random elements from the show and not anything narrative going on. The mechanics just fit together so perfectly. As the box says, you get a crew, get a job, and keep flying. It's great for fans of efficiency-engine gameplay, of non-confrontational game mechanics, and of sci-fi in general and Firefly in particular. I'm very happy to have it in my collection.

 

The issue, I guess, is that I haven't ever been totally satisfied with how the eight or so games I've played have ended. No matter what scenario we pick, it always seems like everybody finally gets their ships right with crew and starts taking high-risk jobs here and there, then one player hits the goal a couple turns later and everyone else just feels like they've been left holding the bucket. The way the game seems to work is that there's no lasting advantage to filling out your ranks. The player who's managed to cut corners most effectively, who's managed to substitute gear for crew whenever possible, is going to have a lead that never disappears, even if other players with bigger crews are taking bigger jobs with bigger payouts. In the abstract, I'm fine with leaner crews being more efficient, but maybe the contrast of that with the theme is what leaves me disappointed, because the show makes me feel like a six-person crew of motley abilities should do just as well if not better than a ship with just a captain and his right-hand man, even if the latter two have the better gear. I don't think I have a point here, except to say that I wish this game lasted longer, but I'm not sure how to make that happen without simply making the playtime longer, and that's not really what I want when I want it to be longer.

 

Also, the piracy missions from the second expansion are awesome, but the expanded board from the third expansion, which is even more awesome, makes it really unfeasible for anyone except a player who's chosen that one fast bounty-hunting ship to take them against other players, because no other ship can move far enough to catch up. The map feels too big! The jobs are too situational! There are too many options! I was about to win last game, but then the second-place guy came up from behind. Whatever! I want to play again soon.

[tberton]

Has anybody seen Shut Up & Sit Down's review of Dog Eat Dog, the RPG-lite about colonialism? It's a really worthwhile read and I'd love to hear everybody's thoughts, especially if anybody's played the game or is expecting to play it soon. I'm doing my Master's in Public History and my research is probably going to be about history in tabletop games, so this is really relevant. Also, I'm TAing a course about empire and colonization, which means my scholar-sense is tingling twice as hard.

[supasheep]

I read that review earlier, it is a brilliant piece of writing. It really shows why I love SU&SD - they are able to do humour and serious writing to such an excellent standard. I both really want to play Dog Eat Dog and think that I couldn't stand playing it as it sounds so draining.

[BusbyBerkeley]

I'm thinking of picking up a new game for my birthday this Friday and its looking like I'll finally be adding Carcassonne to my collection. Should I be on with just the base game or is there an essential expansion I oughta pick up with it?

[supasheep]

I haven't got any of the expansions and in my opinion the game works really well stand-alone. I suspect after a long period the addition of some expansions would help to add to the game, which is probably the stage I've reached, but it certainly works well on its own and is a lot of fun!

[Dewar]

The X360 version has the rivers expansion and that made it a ton more interesting for me. I can't really say for sure about the physical version though.

[Gormongous]

Has anybody seen Shut Up & Sit Down's review of Dog Eat Dog, the RPG-lite about colonialism? It's a really worthwhile read and I'd love to hear everybody's thoughts, especially if anybody's played the game or is expecting to play it soon. I'm doing my Master's in Public History and my research is probably going to be about history in tabletop games, so this is really relevant. Also, I'm TAing a course about empire and colonization, which means my scholar-sense is tingling twice as hard.

I read that review earlier, it is a brilliant piece of writing. It really shows why I love SU&SD - they are able to do humour and serious writing to such an excellent standard. I both really want to play Dog Eat Dog and think that I couldn't stand playing it as it sounds so draining.

 

It is too quiet in my apartment now that I finished reading that review. I bought the PDF of the game a while back, because I have an interest in collecting indie RPGs with interesting conflict-resolution mechanics, but I might buy the physical version, because reading it shows me such a powerful teaching tool.

 

I know two people in the city where I live who would play this game with me, maybe three. There'd be four, but one moved away. I don't know if I'll ever get around to asking, not least because the one who I know for a fact is the richest of us has the potential to be a harder man than Brendan. I'm stressed just thinking about it.

[Hermie]

The issue, I guess, is that I haven't ever been totally satisfied with how the eight or so games I've played have ended. 

 

To be fair, isn't an unsatisfying ending thematically appropriate for Firefly?

 

 

 

Re Carcassone: We picked up the South Seas variant at a book store sale, and I am happy with it. The board mechanic is the same, but you have resource tokens you have to gather in different combinations in order to get points. 

[tberton]

It is too quiet in my apartment now that I finished reading that review. I bought the PDF of the game a while back, because I have an interest in collecting indie RPGs with interesting conflict-resolution mechanics, but I might buy the physical version, because reading it shows me such a powerful teaching tool.

 

I know two people in the city where I live who would play this game with me, maybe three. There'd be four, but one moved away. I don't know if I'll ever get around to asking, not least because the one who I know for a fact is the richest of us has the potential to be a harder man than Brendan. I'm stressed just thinking about it.

 

Yeah, I think I'm going to pick up the physical version as well and play it with some of my grad school friends. I wonder how easy it would be to modify though. Just from my impressions of the review and the website, the biggest issue I have with the game is that there's only one Colonizer, making it seem monolithic. It seems like having two Colonizers would be more interesting and true to life, since they could possibly have competing interests and be played off of each other.