Board Games: Have you heard of this Settlers of Catan thing?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Games: Have you heard of this Settlers of Catan thing?

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homullus: Mar 27, 2009

jmzero posted:

I'm just one person - but I'll clarify why I hate Risk: Risk is a fairly naked political game.

There's bits and dice and cards and what not, but most games come down to who gets attacked least - and this comes down to politics. The important tactics have nothing to do with the game board, and everything to do with "flying under the radar", "choosing when to honor an alliance" and "how much of an alliance can I have without pissing off the other players".

The political game works. You can be good at it. But you can also get bored of it - and not just Risk but all very political games. The important tactics in Risk are the same as the important tactics in Smallworld, Scrumbrawl, Settlers, or 100 others. I've met my lifetime quota for all of them. I'm tired of purposefully staying in second place so as not to aggro other players. I'm tired of some guy going overboard on revenge to try to discourage attackers in the next game. I'm tired of nobody trading with Bob because he's in the lead (meaning everyone else rubber-band catches up). I'm tired of all the ploys and tactics that "good" political players pride themselves in.

Again - I'm not saying all these things aren't valid things to be interested in, or that you can't be good at them. And I'm definitely not against games that rely on human interaction (I love, say, The Resistance).

I'm only saying I'm tired of political games. The problems I, and many people, have with Risk have nothing to do with the combat system or randomness or cards or realism or player elimination or length (well, OK, some of those are bad too.. but they're not the core complaint) and everything to do with the core interactions between players.

In a multi-agent game, when one person can choose another single person to dramatically harm or benefit, you pretty much end up with the same game every time. And usually I want to play something else.

I've been trying to explain to people why I don't like Settlers of Catan despite its success and popularity -- this is why. You put it better than I have before, so I'ma just adapt what you said.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2012 01:26

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 13:03

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

PaybackJack posted:

Got a chance to play Castle Ravenloft tonight and boy was that awful. We were never threatened, never used a healing surge, tore through every monster we came across and beat the scenario in under an hour. Nobody at the table was even remotely engaged in the game, from the hardcore DnDers to the DnD newbies. If it had gone longer than an hour there would have been a collective sigh of relief it was over.

My experience is quite the opposite, and we found it quite lethal. I'd still rather be playing actual D&D.

I have actually been wondering about Lords of Waterdeep -- how is it?

# ¿ Jul 10, 2012 18:59

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

SteveMcQueen posted:

I am working on getting my girlfriend to appreciate 1v1 boardgames too. After a bit of googling, I found this list (http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/68056/a-gaming-couples-top-25) which seems like a decent place to start.

I think unfortunately war games (which I could never swing) are really where two player gaming is best.

Coincidentally I am doing the same thing and (independent of that list) started with Lost Cities, which she knew and liked from Xbox Live Arcade. It is very fast and fun but not really a board game (even though it does have a board).

# ¿ Jul 10, 2012 22:19

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Ryoshi posted:

So if I was looking for a strategy game, should I go with Small World or Small World Underground?

They are almost exactly the same game and you can mix the races and their descriptors together. Underground has relics (which are not bad but not thrilling) and semiconquerable river spaces (and then aquatic races that can do better with them) and cosmetic differences. I think Underworld is better, but only by a little, and if you end up liking it, it's nice to have the greater variety of races and descriptors from both sets.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2012 14:31

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

SteveMcQueen posted:

Thanks for the tip. Any thoughts on the difference between the board game and the card game?

I haven't played or purchased the board game yet. Baby steps!

# ¿ Jul 11, 2012 19:19

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Funso Banjo posted:

I don't get it. The Heilphones thing.

Don't you see? Apple is clearly comparable to Hitler and/or Nazi Germany, because

# ¿ Jul 13, 2012 20:10

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

mikeycp posted:

Oh man that sounds excellent. Why isn't this game in my house yet?

Your house lacks a time machine capable of moving you to November 2012.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2012 15:52

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

taser rates posted:

I was thinking of picking this up, are any of the expansions worth getting?

I think Underground's water spaces for a more interesting board, as well. I am not enough of a game-ologist to know whether they cause balance issues.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2012 17:19

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Naramyth posted:

That sounds pretty rad. Does it matter what set you start with?

You need one set per player and ideally you aren't both playing as the same thing, but you can if you want. So aside from that, no, it doesn't matter.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2012 20:51

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

GrandpaPants posted:

So after using the Warhammer license to great success with Blood Bowl: Team Manager and Chaos in the Old World, Fantasy Flight Games decided to use the rich setting of WH40K for...Talisman: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3446

I think it's over-generous to call what Talisman has a "game system." At least when Candy Land ends is marked clearly on the map.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2012 16:49

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Randalor posted:

I'm just curious, but why is there so much hate for Talisman? From what I've seen, it seems to be very much "Love it or hate it" going by what other people have said on BGG.

The random movement is in either direction, at least, and many of the squares you land on offer you some choice, but the game consists of:

1) roll dice to move. You can go clockwise or counter-clockwise. Then
2a) roll dice and consult the chart on the space, or
2b) draw cards! If you are lucky, they are useful items or monsters you can crush. If you are not, have bad things happen and/or roll dice and consult charts to see whether other bad things happen
2c) occasionally encounter other players when you land on their spaces. Roll dice to see how that turns out.
3) wait about 20 minutes to see who's going to win and then wait another 40+ minutes for them to roll enough dice for enough chart results en route to that victory

# ¿ Jul 30, 2012 17:54

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

I used to like Talisman when I was younger, and have some older edition around somewhere still, but then I learned about games with meaningful player decisions and better pacing. Here is a mercifully condensed version of Talisman:

Rule 1: Each player rolls 1d6 on his or her turn. Consult the following chart for what you say:

1: "DAMMIT! That is a bad thing!"
2: "Welp. That is an undesirable thing."
3-4: "Huh. So that was my turn?"
5: "OK! That could have been worse."
6: "Woo! That is a good thing!"

Rule 2: Your position in the game is determined by the number of times you say "Woo!" minus the number of times you say "DAMMIT!".

Rule 3: Any player at -3 has lost the game but has to keep rolling anyway. Once a player reaches +3, that player is declared pre-winner, and everyone has to keep rolling for 10 more minutes.

Rule 4: After those 10 minutes, if the pre-winner rolls a 1, that player loses. If the pre-winner rolls anything else, you can stop playing. Finally.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2012 19:21

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Randalor posted:

The problem with a statement like this is that I don't think I've found a game that everybody likes. My girlfriend hates Dominion, does that mean its a bad game? Of course not, but following your definition of what is good and bad, it is. I personally have had bad game experiences with Puerto Rico, and I prefer to play other games, but it's not a bad game. How about the difference between a good game and a bad game is what your group enjoys? I mean, my group enjoys munchkin as a casual time-waster, and we enjoy Cosmic Encounters. Does that mean we're all bad gamers? Of course not, it's just what we prefer.

I don't think what you said is true at all. I can see Pulp Fiction and say "that's a good movie" and not enjoy it (I did like it -- just sayin'). It is possible to enjoy a bad game and not enjoy a good game; a good game does not require house rules, or people who are uncritical, or people who have a PhD in ludology, or rabid fans of the game's theme/flavor, or "the right group" to be good. A good game is well-paced, balanced, and achieves the goals it sets for itself.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2012 05:41

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Randalor posted:

It's possible I mis-interpreted the point of his bolded statement (well, okay, very likely). I agree with your defenition of a good game, but then you run into the problem of how do you define if a game is well-paced, balanced and achieved its goals? Once again, the first two points boil down to playgroup, I find. I've met people who say that Twilight Imperium is well-paced, and people who say that Munchkin is balanced (though in this case it was "It's balanced because the game expects you to be kneecapping each other left and right, and working together to kill whoever's turn it is").

As far as "goals it set for itself", I worry whenever a game's goal list doesn't list "Be entertaining and/or fun" as goal 1. I've played a few games in my time where the game was balanced, well-paced, and met its goals, but none of us actually enjoyed the experience. Partially because one person had all-but-won on turn 3, meanwhile the game took 30-40 turns to complete.

As for Talisman, a friend of mine gave me a copy of the 2nd ed. of it tonite as a belated birthday gift (almost complete, missing a few gold pieces tokens). I've taken a quick look through the rules, it's fairly straightforward, a bit 80s mindset with some of the rules (yeah, probably going to houserule the d6, move that many squares rule to be move up to d6 squares). The podcast Flip The Table brought up the point of alot of games in the 80's seemed to suffered from a "This is the norm" mindset with their rules, and it wasn't until later that they broke away from that, so it may be interesting to see how much of the game that one rulechange fixes.

I still remember my parents' Yahtzee box claiming it was "a game of skill and chance" which is strictly speaking true, but "chance" should come before "skill" and be written in a font 12x the size.

I don't think "balance" is a matter of group. To use a toy example, my grandparents' old Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots had a problem: the red robot's head popped up wayyyy more easily. That is an example of poor balance because a player who knew could always choose blue and had an advantage for every match. Saying that the better player can choose red as a handicap is a houserule, not balance. You see what I mean, right? A "good game" would allow any given player an equal chance to win with either plastic man. I'm not arguing for symmetrical design (though clearly the plastic robutts are supposed to be identical), just balanced. If the blue guy's arm only punched half as fast, it might be ok.

Well-paced is definitely more subjective -- a game you don't like will feel too long no matter how long it is -- but another movie analogy: even with a good movie you're not enjoying, you can still usually tell whether you're seeing things that keep the film moving forward, either in plot or in characterization (ignoring movies like Memento or Pulp Fiction where things can be confusing). Likewise, in a good game, you can usually tell whether you're moving toward a resolution at a controlled pace. Yahtzee is well-paced because it ends when everyone's sheets are filled and they usually fill at the same rate.

Talisman is a game that can even be all-but-won in character selection with just the core set; if one player gets the Elf, another the Dwarf, and a third the Prophetess, I'd bet the prophetess would win 75% of the time. That is ungood design.

Free Talisman tip: if you are in the lead, go for the Crown of Command as soon as you can. Nearly every time I've ever played, one reason it took even longer than its already-too-long playtime was that the presumptive winner waited until the inner ring literally was a foregone conclusion. Depending on your items, you can sometimes even go all the way to the penultimate square when you don't even have a talisman yet, and just plan on getting one/taking one from somebody from there (ease depending on which expansions you have).

# ¿ Jul 31, 2012 15:38

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

McNerd posted:

That, and there's a case of groupthink that spans our entire country. Monopoly is supposed to be the game of brilliant negotiations and deals and stuff, not just a crappy dice game.

I'll just put this here since nobody else has yet in this thread, I think. Monopoly was not supposed to be a game of brilliant negotiations originally; it was supposed to be "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences", i.e. a ball of suck for everyone except the winning player. It succeeds admirably at this (or would if people caught on to that theme); how it's now perceived is a whole other cautionary tale of marketing and nostalgia.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2012 22:14

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

GrandpaPants posted:

The rules for Antoine Bauza's (of 7 Wonders fame) new game is now available. The game seems really, really simple, which I suppose is his design style, but that art is really gorgeous to me. It feels like some sort of weird worker placement game, but my biggest fear is whether or not there will be much variability between games. There seem to be no random elements aside from turn order and who your traveler actually is, plus a few things in the game itself that probably don't amount to much, so replayability might be a concern.

I might still pick it up though since that art/board looks great and will undoubtedly be stained by gamer fingers.

Reading the rules, I think it would vary quite a bit from game to game. Each traveler has a certain advantage, but since some locations are single spaces, you can keep them from landing on those spaces -- travelers can only move forward, the one who's furthest back always moves, and you must stop at every inn.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2012 16:00

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Tekopo posted:

I would have to agree entirely with that assessment, but the fun for me was in reviewing what the actual timeline ended up being at the end of the game. I haven't played it in a while though so my opinion of the game would probably change if I tried it again, though.

I think the best way to play Chrononauts is to play it maybe three times so that you understand what you're looking at, then only show up at tables after the game is done and see what the timelines look like.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2012 14:40

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

I want to add the part I like least about the new D&D games like Ravenloft and Ashardalon: when you level up is random and unlikely. You need to both have 5 XP (which are normally spent in 5 XP increments on canceling those evil Encounter cards) AND roll a natural 20. And you can only level up once. I've never had it happen where somebody both had the XP and the roll at the same time.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2012 06:01

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Winson_Paine posted:

On jibber jabbering with some other folks it looks like Descent is getting bumped in favor of one of the D&D Boardgames. Given our groups makeup I am going with Castle Ravenloft unless there is something terrible about one of the three I should know and another that is much better? I saw they were praised in here and all y'all seem to know your biddness.

I have Ravenloft and Ashardalon. What everyone says is true -- the AI of the bad guys is programmed, which is a strength to me because the whole group can plan around that. I would agree with Crackbone's criticism, though: you just keep drawing cards and placing tiles until you find the places and/or items and/or creatures you need for that scenario. New tiles and new encounter cards are nearly always bad news, so it's a matter of whether you get the things you need before you run out of resources to handle them. It can end with a TPK or an easy win, but usually somewhere between. The thing that I liked least (mentioned before) is that you can MAYBE level up once. MAYBE, but probably not (you need 5XP of monsters killed personally and to roll a natural 20 before you've spent those XP canceling an encounter card that would have killed the party). Ravenloft and Ashardalon both have guys that can level from 1 to 2, if I recall. I haven't played the Drizzt game, but I assume it's the same.

I think the scenarios might be slightly better in Ashardalon than Ravenloft; they'd already had a design context by the time it was released, I think so probably had more ideas about things you could do with the system. Ravenloft has a zombie dragon and a dracolich thing, so you still get a Dragon in your Dungeons & Dragons.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2012 22:30

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

The Sean posted:

Personally, I think that it sucks that established professionals use a generally grass-roots approach to funding but it's not against the KS rules.

That bothered me at first also. I thought about it a lot more, and I think it's great for hobbies. It's not a zero-sum game and it allows fans of established names to help ensure the products they want get made. Tim Schafer makes the best video games nobody plays, but now the people who DO play them can make sure he keeps making them and not losing money.

Just imagine KS had been around to resurrect Firefly in time to get the actors under contract, for example.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2012 16:12

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Acinonyx posted:

There are WWI and WWII versions. I like the WWI better because the balance feels more like I imagine dogfighting to be, and less 'Welp, we're both out of gas, so it's time to fly home. Same time tomorrow?' I'm pretty sure it's all out of print now so it's probably tough to get. 'Check Your Six!' is a great rules set for WWII minis. It gives you more choices to make that Wings of War but plays very similarly. The basics are the same as X-wing. You have a plane and a pilot; you pick maneuvers, you roll dice, you curse die rolls. There are some big differences though. Weapons have different powers and ranges. In X-wing, you have a number of dice to roll, those dice have a certain percentage of hits, crits, eyes (are they called eyes? We were just calling them eyes) and blanks. Everyone has the same range with the same effects. There's no auto-dodge in Wings, which I hate in X-wing. You're telling me 'green' maneuvers like straight, level flight make you harder to hit? Are they kidding me? Another big difference is the altitude and speed of your craft are kept track of in Wings. I guess they are going for a more space feel in X-wing, but how does that translate to being LESS 3D than WWI fighters? In Wings, have a certain altitude which determines who you can shoot at, as well as gives you options for special moves like power dives to pick up speed. Ok, X-wing lacks gravity so no need for dives, but who the hell can your Tie fighter be going full speed, and then suddenly go backwards without even slowing down; but there is no provision for stopping? The rules about collisions in X-wing also make me sad. Move back until you're not colliding any more? What happened to it being 3D space? Also, in Star Wars movies, ships crash into each other constantly. How is this not a mechanic they built into the game? The asteroids not blocking LOS and not really doing much damage also makes me sad. You're telling me a ship crashing into and taking max damage from an asteroid is still flying around, just with a busted fender?
Ok, that's already way more than anyone wants to read about my thoughts about X-wing.

Actually this is really useful for me -- I would want to be able to have space battles akin to the ones in the movies. That is what I would want a game that says "X-Wing" on it to do for me. If it doesn't do that, I'd honestly rather be doing WWI dogfights with rules that make pokey stalling planes fun.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2012 19:00

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Harlock posted:

Anybody have thoughts to share on Shadows over Camelot? Our group still loves cooperative games especially with a medieval/fantasy feel to it.

I like it a lot, and have played it successfully sans traitor with non-gamers. It's not VERY medieval but the art is fun. Some of the threats can simply get too large (the dragon in particular) to deal with, so you are left trying to defeat other lesser threats before the big ones doom you.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2012 18:29

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Crackbone posted:

Was that the August reprint stock? It's gone already?

Gilgamesh posted:

I missed the "Space Alert in stock" discussion. I just ordered one. Still available at $37.21.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ALJ9LI/ref=ox_ya_os_product

Trying to be helpful and adding this sentence so I'm not emptyquoting.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2012 19:49

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

GrandpaPants posted:

On order for me are Troyes, Netrunner, and Seasons (what I assume is holding up the order), along with various Summoner Wars packs to get free shipping. I have Kickstarted the Minigame Library, Resistance: Avalon and The Manhatten Project + expansions. My next order will probably include Tokaido, Duel of Ages 2, maybe 7 Wonders: Cities, Dixit and whatever remaining Summoner Wars packs I have left to get, like the Cloaks and Fallen Kingdom. I need lighter games that I actually enjoy because nobody else seems to enjoy "heavy" games like Chaos in the Old World or Caylus

When does Tokaido come out for regular people? That's the only non-Kickstarter game that doesn't exist yet that I'm excited about. My current groups definitely prefer lighter games and it looks great for them.

I got Space Alert earlier this week after its reappearance on Amazon; haven't played it yet and have Kickstarted DreadBall. I'm also waiting for King of Tokyo to round out my "light & all-ages" category.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2012 17:30

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Nitis posted:

Also, I'm looking for an easy card game for two to four peeps over 30 - 40 minutes. Easy setup and take down is a must.

How about Gloom?

# ¿ Sep 13, 2012 19:20

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

St0rmD posted:

When i'm teaching people Dixit, I usually tell them to try exactly this sort of thing. I say "this game is all about sending secret messages to people, so the better you know everyone at the table, the better you're going to be able to control your score relative to theirs. If you can make a reference to just one other person, that only you and them will get, you're doing awesome."

The storyteller (the one picking the clue) gets 3 points unless everybody or nobody gets it; if you are playing to win you are a horrible jerk (because it's Dixit) and also want the smallest non-zero number of other players to get your clue so that almost nobody else is getting points. When it's not your turn to give the clue, you get more points if people guess your (incorrect) card.

The most important thing for new players to learn is that middle ground -- not so specific that it's only their card that could be right, not so vague that they're relying on chance.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2012 13:09

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

PlaneGuy posted:

"That movie we saw last night" while staring directly at your SO is a dumb jerk move.

It's also a good way to start a domestic dispute in front of Company, if your SO finds some completely different reference or no reference at all in the cards.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2012 17:38

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Yarrbossa posted:

We're also eyeing Gloom, which seems to have high replay value because of the storytelling aspect.

There's not THAT much of a storytelling aspect to Gloom. " . . . and THEN . . . he gets Bothered By Bichons!" is what I suspect happens for most groups. It IS a fun enough game and the transparent cards are a very interesting game mechanic, but it's not really a storytelling game. You might want to consider Once Upon A Time or (for two players and if you can find it) Dark Cults if the storytelling replayability is what appeals to you.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2012 12:57

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

BlueInkAlchemist posted:

I know my wife enjoys the old Caesar games on her PC but is not a huge board game fan. Is Carcassonne anything like that?

No, not even a little.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2012 14:56

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Gort posted:

I had an idea for an RPG where your character was represented by a deck of cards. You'd build your dude by selecting various powers for him, then they'd all go in the deck. When you got hit, you'd discard some cards. When you hit zero, you were knocked out.

Anything like that on the market? It's basically the mechanic from the Fantasy Flight Lord of the Rings game, but there'd be more customisation of your character/deck.

There's this. I think it's a fun idea (no idea if the one linked is any good). You could make a game such that when players complete a quest, they get a new card. When you release an expansion, the quest reward is a set of cards the players can choose from to add to their decks.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2012 15:50

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Philthy posted:

I really hope someone opens up a gaming bar here next.

Weary Traveler used to have a big shelf of games, don't know whether it still does. Not really the same thing as a gaming bar, but the intention was there to have it be a place where people would drink and play.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2012 20:51

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Winson_Paine posted:

Bear in mind the rules over there are different so if someone likes Talisman or Monopoly or whatever there would need to be DIPLOMACY but other than that we thought outreach might be fun or interesting.

Ugh. Our punishment for somebody liking Monopoly or Talisman is that we need to play Diplomacy? That's, like, mean, man.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2012 03:04

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

I've heard plenty of things bad against the expansion, but King of Tokyo is aces so everyone should go right ahead and buy that right now.

I enjoyed it quite a bit but I played it with some children and the player elimination is a major problem if they can't handle it. Not that there were tears, just boredom, so when the one (the oldest!) charged with distributing energy cubes got greedy and got eliminated early, he made the game a lot longer by attention hogging, dragging out every energy cube transaction. He directly contributed to one of the others not wanting to play it anymore.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2012 06:01

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Initio posted:

"Why not" is how my collection grows such that I needed a new piece of furniture to store all of my games.

Make the new piece of furniture a throne resting atop game shelving.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2012 17:07

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

PaybackJack posted:

I can't program worth a drat so it wasn't me...

Maybe that's how bad it is.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2012 19:39

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

LumberingTroll posted:

What are peoples thoughts on games that use multiple different kinds of dice? 4,6,8,10,12,20 sided. In my spare time (Which isn't much) I have been working on a dungeon crawler, and I like the idea of different sized dice representing more powerful attacks / attributes.

Practically speaking I assume that most games don't do this due to the cost of putting all of these dice in the box. I have been thinking about releasing the rules as a pdf which would be cheap to purchase and easy to distribute, but that means that the use of cards is an issue (who wants to print their own cards).

On the other hand if you are going for a physical product d6 is optimal as they are cheap and readily available.

Also is there a Trad Games design thread?

Consider custom dice of the same shape but different colors, with multiple symbols on each side. Combinations of die color and the symbol sought could account for different powers and abilities without requiring as many dice.

For example, the blue d6s have different numbers of stars and moons on each face. One power might use stars, another might use moons, and some might use both to determine success and amount of effect. The red d6s have stars and skulls in varying numbers, though, and some monster might be rolling red and blue d6s hoping for stars.

In this manner, both the number of dice and the frequency of the symbol sought can vary powers without bringing too many weird (and in the case of d4, lovely) dice into the picture.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 18:55

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

There is also Ugg-Tect, where players have a language limiter. Add some element of randomization, where the limited nonsense phrases ("Ugungu!") with which you can share information with a subset of players are neither shared with the rest initially nor constant from game to game. Among the the things communicable, though, would be "I figured out that when this guy says X, he means Y in our language." The quarterback, then, has to split his time between planning his side's every move and deciphering the moves of others.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 21:59

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

the panacea posted:

So I'm still looking for a good 2 player coop dungeon crawler and stumbled upon the D&D adventure boardgame series.
The video reviews on boardgamegeek seem pretty promising. Any thoughts on those from you guys?

To my mind, the pros are the plastic mans, interoperability of games in the series, and the ability to create/use new scenarios. The monster AI can create interesting and challenging situations, and you won't always win the game. There's a little bit of "deck-building" possible also.

The cons are that it's often repetitive even within a given scenario and the dungeon tiles themselves are a little underwhelming; they used their generic dungeon art rather than giving each boardgame a new feel.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2012 21:27

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

GrandpaPants posted:

I'm reading through the rules for Mage Knight, and I have a question. Do you have to play all your Movement cards at once, or can you dole them out and adjust it depending on the conditions? I ask specifically for when you approach a keep or something during the day, so that you can play X move to move adjacent, see what's there, then decide whether you want to assault. Nevermind, found it in the rules! This seems like a game that would hugely benefit from a flowchart or aid of some sort. Anyone have any recommendations?

Also drat, I hate harping on this, but these rulebooks are pretty confusingly organized. The fact that there are two of them (kinda) doesn't really help things.

I do wish they were both in one book because sometimes I just pick up the wrong one, but I really did appreciate the walkthrough on the first playthrough -- having the rules appear more or less exactly when you needed them was great.

In terms of flowcharts, there are these, but I think they make things much, much worse. In basically every encounter, you will not need to use most of the chart. I think playing the game a couple more times solo is a better investment of time than learning a flowchart, since you will learn the game flow AND some strategy in The Game As She Is Played.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2012 17:29

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 13:03

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Pierzak posted:

2ed is more campaign/special-scenario focused than pure hack&slash, but I burned out on it super fast and went back to 1ed, still pissed off that I paid money for it. Feels way too boardgamey.

Could you elaborate a bit on how a boardgame might feel "too boardgamey"? My default reaction is that if any version of Descent feels too boardgamey, you should probably be playing a role-playing game, but it is possible I am misunderstanding what you mean!

# ¿ Dec 16, 2012 16:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Games: Have you heard of this Settlers of Catan thing?

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