I don't know what it is, but lately I have almost no stomach for Euros. The thought of sitting down to learn or play one sounds about as appealing as volunteering to have my limbs ripped off by a Rancor.
Lately I've been playing lots of Talisman, Relic, Forbidden Stars, etc... Games with dice, destruction, and a great deal of fun. All the games that I'm wanting to play are either conflict games, adventure games, or narrative games. I've got Battlelore ready to rock...Runebound 3rd Edition arrived today, along with Warhammer Quest The Card Game. I also have a seemingly never-ending itch to play Star Wars Risk that I should probably get checked out by a doctor.
Right now I feel like my boardgaming spirit guides are Hawk and Animal from the Legion of Doom. "WHAT A RUSH!"
It's funny but the rare occasions I want to play euros are when I'm in a quiet mood and don't feel like talking much. That says something about euros, maybe.
Egg, I'm coming over with Princes of Florence and some spreadsheets. It's time to pass some time doing something together, yet for all intents and purposes alone.
I'm in the same mood, at least when it comes to the public gaming event I go to most Tuesdays. Last week I brought out Thunder Road. This week, it's Star Wars: Epic Duels.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Egg Shen, stoic
Barney, I'm only letting you through the door if you have a Kenny G "Breathless" cassette and some non-alcoholic sparkling cider.
I'm like Hex though...I guess I have to be in a certain mood to play a straight up Euro game. Right now that is not the case. When a game hits the table these days I'm looking for one thing...fun. Right now I'm finding that chucking dice, taking over planets, blowing shit up real good, defying the odds, and laughing at the table are all that appeal to me.
I'm looking at my games and contemplating a fire sale of any and all Euros that I have. I won't do it because eventually the pendulum will swing back and I'll crave something more Euro-y. I've been bitten by the Trash bug before, but never has it been this bad. Maybe it's because this has been a pretty solid year for trashy games? Not sure. Anyone else going through a similar phase at the moment?
I'm always in a Trashy mood. The last few weeks has been all Ameritrash all the time. Cthulhu Wars, Thunder Road, Epic Spell Wars, Rampage, and a ton of "The Adventurers: Temple of Chac". And ZPocalypse, which is a totally underrated game. CDennett and Nate were kind enough to send me the base game (Which I'm paying forward to Dave Roswell) and ZMaster (something that adds a 5th player and an "Overlord" role), which I can't wait to play.
It's just more fun chucking dice and killing shit. I like Euros, but they are all starting to feel the same.
I always float the idea of selling Temple of Chac but then we decide to play it again and that idea dissipates.
I've been getting back into Descent (first edition) and playing the hell out of it. Yeah, it can grind, but it still feels much more satisfying than the revised edition, and the length isn't really an issue for us since I just park the game overnight if it runs long. The dungeons feel more daunting and less like bite-sized puzzle scenarios to be solved, something that constantly irritated me in the second edition.
I enjoyed this guy's take on replaying first edition, especially the section at the bottom (1-7).
Black Barney wrote: Egg, I'm coming over with Princes of Florence and some spreadsheets. It's time to pass some time doing something together, yet for all intents and purposes alone.
Well, Bless your little heart.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Black Barney
Frohike wrote: I always float the idea of selling Temple of Chac but then we decide to play it again and that idea dissipates.
I've been getting back into Descent (first edition) and playing the hell out of it. Yeah, it can grind, but it still feels much more satisfying than the revised edition, and the length isn't really an issue for us since I just park the game overnight if it runs long. The dungeons feel more daunting and less like bite-sized puzzle scenarios to be solved, something that constantly irritated me in the second edition.
I enjoyed this guy's take on replaying first edition, especially the section at the bottom (1-7).
Yeah good call on Descent 1st Edition. After sinking quite a bit of time into 2.0 I'm really not loving the direction that FFG took with the game. Yes the campaign is very easy to implement, and the rules are easy to explain. However, it's more of a race game than a dungeon crawl. Was 1st Edition perfect? Hell no. It certainly could have used some streamlining, but I think they went too far into the other direction. I've yet to play an "encounter" in 2.0 that left me satisfied. The pacing in Descent 2.0 is horrible. From the word "Go" the whole thing is just a mad scramble on both sides. You have no choice but to rush around completing your objective as fast as possible. If you replaced the half naked barbarians with middle aged men in pressed white collared shirts, it could be "Office Team Building : The Game". OK maybe not quite, but I've yet to complete a quest and feel like a heroic adventurer.
Which leads me to another thing that I've been craving; Along with betrayal, destruction, exploration and yelling I want a game that doesn't end in 60 mins. When the hell did everyone become afraid to play a 3 hour game? If I'm playing a dungeon crawler I might want it to last longer than 90 mins. A good game needs to have proper pacing and a nice sense of progression. There is nothing worse than playing a fun game and have it come to an abrupt end....just when it should be kicking into high gear.
It's funny that someone can sit down to nice leisurely 3 hour viewing of a Lord of the Rings movie, but heaven forbid a board game stays out for that long. I guess you could argue the two forms of stimulation are different and that board games can get a little too cerebrally fatiguing or repetitive after 3 hours, but my point is that people are often willing to just block out that chunk of time for a throw-away entertainment activity. I don't understand why time commitment expectations aren't similarly relaxed when planning some board game time.
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