Board Games!

[PJ.]

I really, really dislike the scoring in carcassone. Alicia loves that like...we make the board, but also hates the scoring.

Catan is just.....bleh. played with like 6, or something. And it was just not fun. Got boxed in and just basically not allowed to do anything.

[Sudo_Nym]

Personally, I like Forbidden Desert as a co-op. Simple enough that new players can join in, complex enough that you can have discussions about what to do. And there's no traitor involved.

[Vi]

I really, really dislike the scoring in carcassone. Alicia loves that like...we make the board, but also hates the scoring.

For information, how so? Were you running out of pieces?

[PJ.]

No, I mostly didn't like the farms bit.

[zoraster]

It's sad because farms are frequently the thing that make people go "ugh" about carcasonne, but they're also the biggest part that adds any strategy (particularly with a basic expansion or two added as those are designed to break up farms).

[Andrius]

I haven't played Dead of Winter, but I don't really like the concept of everyone having to act traitory to fulfill their side missions. And I believe that in Dead of Winter that there can also be multiple traitors? Also I don't understand there being a traitor in the first place from a thematic perspective. Why would anyone side with the zombies? That's weird. Again, haven't played it, but it just has a lot of question marks.

There's only ever one traitor at most.
And you don't really have to act traitor-like for most of them, though there are multiple ways of doing things. You might have to hold a certain number of a certain commodity of cards in your hand at the end of the game (Food, Fuel) which is certainly easier to pull off than others. A friend of mine seems to have unnatural luck in drawing the 'you win if X characters have died', so yes, they could go peacefully and hope to have people die of natural causes (read: zombies) but for my friend he just took a switchblade to all of my characters and it was actually great fun in the end since we both won on our own terms despite him killing literally every character I had.

And you don't (generally) win with the zombies as the traitor. (Though there is *one* Traitor Objective that's basically YOU ARE A MAD SCIENTIST so YMMV.)
Everyone wants to survive and most traitor objectives aren't allied with the zombies, but rather can use the zombies as another tool for their plans.



I'm also interested in Mechs/Minions.

Has anyone here played Mice and Mystics, The Grizzled, or Aeon's End?

Mice and Mystics is a fun dungeon-crawler whose heart really is in the story. Combat's pretty simple for a dungeon-crawler, and it has a great theme in that you are all mice running around doing dungeon-crawler stuff like bashing bad guys (read: roaches, rats, centipedes, etc.) gathering loot (read: mouse-style look like thimble helmets, button shields, and the all-mighty toothpick), and exploring the castle.
I recommend the game.
I'd almost recommend it as your starter dungeon-crawler as well.
I do, however, recommend becoming very familiar with the rules before you play, and instead of teaching every player everything there is to know, just teach them the basics they need to know to play the game and you basically be the rules guru. Makes playing easier, especially with newer players.
While I haven't actually started the second game/expansion (Downwood Tales), I own it and it is amazing.


The Grizzled is hard. Incredibly hard at first. But this is part of its charm. Its a tough co-op game where the war isn't presented as some thing to be won, but rather survived. And it delivers on its promises.

[ChrisOrmie]

Dead of Winter and Mice and Mystics are both great games, I can highly recommend those two. I do find Forbidden Desert to be a fun co-op personally, but the two times I played it the other players just didn't enjoy it (they were non-gamers unless it is Life/Clue/Monopoly that I had convinced to give it a try), so waiting to play that with the wife and friends before deciding on it.

[Chickadee]

How is it with 2 players? I've heard a few people say they really enjoyed it with 2, but BGG has it as not recommended for 2,

If you're referring to The Grizzled, I've yet to play it with just 2 people.

Personally, I like Forbidden Desert as a co-op. Simple enough that new players can join in, complex enough that you can have discussions about what to do. And there's no traitor involved.

I don't really care for Forbidden Desert or Forbidden Island. They both seem to be lacking something for me. Like, they're too light. And I love light games. Filler games, light games and med-light games are right up my alley. But the Forbidden ____ games kind of bore me.

To each their own.

[zoraster]

Forbidden Island/Desert just seem like puzzles to me. Group solved puzzles. And if there's someone who's good at puzzles, they'll tend to dominate. Lots of collaborative games have this problem too, but the Forbidden games particularly seem like that. Any game where it basically doesn't matter that "you're" a particular character.

That's why I prefer collaborative games with a traitor element (surprising on a mafia forum, no?) because at least then there's a risk that someone is providing bad advice on purpose.

[PJ.]

Right, I was talking to Yaw about this yesterday, there are some cooperative games that simply be "alpha gamer"ed into 1 person controlling all the actions. When we were teaching my sister Pandemic, we played two games, after the second she said after the first game she didn't really like it because she felt like she was the pawn on the table and not a player. The second game, once she got the rules, she was able to contribute and liked the game a lot better, but there 's definitely some personalities where people would be apt to take over the entire game cause they know what's right and everyone else doesn't, ect. He brought up liking games like Hanabi(and the new Hanabi-ish Beyond Baker Street), that are designed to not let that sort of thing happen. I believe there are also Co-Op games with secret action selection that help prevent that sort of thing. So if you aren't into the traitor games, there are still co-ops out there that aren't going to be alpha-gamer'd.

[Chickadee]

I played a great dex co-op tonight. It was really balanced, I think mostly due to it being dexterity instead of strategy based. It's called Dungeon Fighter.

It was great. So each person has a character that has little special abilities, based on colored dice. You work your way through a dungeon, battling monsters along the way. The starting player chooses the die they want, passes the rest, and people choose dice until there are none. Then you take turns bouncing the dice onto a target board for ranges of points. There are modifiers to how you have to do stuff. At one point we had to balance the die on our noses and drop it without using hands.

10/10 would play it again anytime.

[PJ.]

I kinda want to go to kingdom-con next weekend but I'd probably have to call in if I wanted to get my money's worth, but I called in two weeks ago =(.

[Chickadee]

This past week seemed to be the week of dex games for me. Riff Raff was really good, played it Saturday night.

[Chickadee]

Any super fun plans for International Table Top Day tomorrow?

I'm aiming for a good 18 hours of gaming. Maybe more....we'll see how long I last haha.

[PJ.]

I think I'm only gonna be playing for like...6-7. Gonna go to kingdom con i think, spend some money, and bang around some dice hopefully. I kinda I could of called off last night and gone to the IDW demo this morning.

[hiplop]

guys i like board games

whats a good one to introduce my friends that think they are lame to

[PJ.]

what do they like? Will they sit through rules? How many players?

[hiplop]

Honestly anything that sounds cool and they won't pass off as lame? If has a good hook can probably get them to do anything.

Looking for stuff with a dedicated group of under ten then also just like some cool games can play whenever someone random comes over?

[Chickadee]

Honestly anything that sounds cool and they won't pass off as lame? If has a good hook can probably get them to do anything.

Looking for stuff with a dedicated group of under ten then also just like some cool games can play whenever someone random comes over?

I find that most random people, and non gamers tend to like non-games, like The Joking Hazard Game, or Cards Against Humanity. Social deduction games sometimes go over well too. Bang, Coup, Secret Hitler, stuff like those. Concept might be a good one too. Hard to say, as every group is a bit different.

[hiplop]

I absolutely despise CAH and that is what they currently enjoy. I want something to replace that. I want to bring my friends to be gamers, I think theyre capable. Just need to build them up ya know

[Chickadee]

I absolutely despise CAH and that is what they currently enjoy. I want something to replace that. I want to bring my friends to be gamers, I think theyre capable. Just need to build them up ya know

I would say start with Concept, and maybe some light social deduction.

[PJ.]

I suggested Mysterium, Bang the Dice Game(which obsoletes Samurai Sword and Bang!), Deus(hippo likes catan), Sushi Go Party, Coup, Love Letter Premium, Shadows over Camelot, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, and Resistance.

Other games that I didn't mention, party games: Spyfall, Insider, Shadow Hunters, Sheriff of nottingham

Smaller(sometimes) group, actual boardgames: 7 Wonders, Mission Red Planet, Jamaica, Captain Sonar(sounds like it could be loud tho), Ticket to ride, Tokaido, San Juan, Takenoko

[Chickadee]

I suggested Mysterium, Bang the Dice Game(which obsoletes Samurai Sword and Bang!), Deus(hippo likes catan), Sushi Go Party, Coup, Love Letter Premium, Shadows over Camelot, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, and Resistance.

Other games that I didn't mention, party games: Spyfall, Insider, Shadow Hunters, Sheriff of nottingham

Smaller(sometimes) group, actual boardgames: 7 Wonders, Mission Red Planet, Jamaica, Captain Sonar(sounds like it could be loud tho), Ticket to ride, Tokaido, San Juan, Takenoko

I've not had much luck with spy fall outside of gaming circles. Pedestrians don't seem to like it in my experience. Makes me sad, because I love it.

[hiplop]

Most of my friends are like... video gamers and have some fascination with geeky things. They aren't plebeans just mostly only played hasbro games ya know

[PJ.]

Nah but like....rules.

That's been my biggest hurdle about the video game > board game transition is that a video game doesn't have a "rules" phase, because the video game is programmed to process that stuff and you're just doing the inputs.

One game that feels A LOT like a video game is Potion Explosion, but tops out at 4.