Classics that Disappointed Me

With the recent announcement of DungeonQuest, I find myself cautiously excited. I've tried a lot of classics that have been reprinted these past year, and more often that not, I am left wanting. Find that a lot of them are missing that extra oomph that I like in games, maybe they're a tad too simple for me. I am left with a feeling of "Huh? Is that it?" When I play some of these games, and I think that updating the classics instead of straight reprints would work best.

Titan, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Star Wars Queen's Gambit. I tried all three of these games over the past year, and I have not felt the desire for more play time. TotAN was fun, but even though it was fun, we all felt like we would rather just be RPGing. We all felt like we were just wandering aimlessly around. Titan showed a lot of promise, and I especially loved the zooming in during battles but the strategic part of the game was too abstract. The recruiting and the movement made no sense, and the learning curve is just too high. Queen's Gambit felt like a really dumbed down War of the Ring. Reminded me of Battleball in simplicity, and not in a good way.

Space Hulk, Cosmic Encounter. These games I liked at first, but with more plays they proved too simple for me. I still like playing them, but they aren't what I was hoping for. Too much hype on the internets. I thought they were going to be awesome awesome games, but they turned out to be just ok.

Dune -- This is one reprint I am VERY excited for. I like how alliances are not easily made/broken unlike in Cosmic Encounter. This game is fantastic. I wish I could find a cheap English copy over on this side of the world.

kookoobah wrote:

Dune -- This is one reprint I am VERY excited for. I like how alliances are not easily made/broken unlike in Cosmic Encounter. This game is fantastic. I wish I could find a cheap English copy over on this side of the world.

Where is "this side of the world"? 'Cause all these games that people are excited about getting reprinted because they're out-of-print and too expensive - with some rare exceptions (Full Metal Planete), they cost just as much on eBay as brand-new games today do; I got Dune for $60, which is probably how much the FFG one will be, and I just sold a complete non-smoky Dungeonquest for $30-something, which is less than the FFG version will be. Just bite the bullet and pay the extra $10 more, MAX, than the FFG reprint will cost.

As to the point of the thread: I completely disagree, but that's because I love that simplicity of the older games, lets us interact with each other instead of the game.

I found that I love the old games - Dune, Cosmic and especially Titan - I just love this game, every time I play it, I learn something new and still I feel like a complete newb. I am learning ASL now and so far I expect it will be another good old game.

As for Dune - make a cheap paper copy and try it. If you like it, make a proper one, it's a game I can't get enough of, we play every Monday and still enjoy it.

If you don't like simple games then you aren't going to like DungeonQuest. DQ really is like a comedy record where you know all the jokes. It's slightly better if it's been a long time since you've played it but it's never as fun as the first couple of times. Maybe FFG will revamp it and make it more interesting but if it's a straight re-print then you will probably want to skip it.

The classic that was disappointing for me was Magic Realm. There seems to be plenty of vocal fans of that (and DQ) around but the magic eluded me. I haven't completely given up on it yet though. It's a wierd game in good and bad ways. Maybe I'm missing something and it will click one day and I'll decide it's brilliant. Or maybe I should just place the attention chit in my asshole instead. That's the kind of facial expression I had during my last game.

Most 'classics' have been duds for me, I think it's because I came from a slightly different era and my classics were stuff like heroquest and siege of the citadel - games I still love.

Diplomacy. Fucking hated this game. Seemed more like a debating exercise than an actual game. That being said I was at a Diplomacy championship a little while ago and it did make dip look more fun.

Cosmic Encounter. Only played FFGs version. I really like it.

Dune. I just don't get this game. At all. Maybe I'd like it more if I were a fan of the books. Will try the FFG edition, but not exactly hanging for it.

Dungeon Quest. Great fun but way over rated. It's similar to talisman for me, great to kick back and shoot the shit over but there isn't much game there. In fact quite a few of the mechanics are a little dumb. I wont be too upset if the reprint gives it a big overhaul.

Titan. Meh. Only game I know where the digital version is better than the board one. Far too long a game, and while the concept is good the mainboard play is dull and the game lacks tension for much of it.

Tales of Arabian Nights: Was so close to buying the reprint of this. Then I played it. Yuk! Worst adventure game ever.

Space Hulk. This was the game I always wanted. And then I got it. And now I find I'm a bit bored with it. The mechanics are brilliant but for me it needs more variety, it gets very samey after a while. I'd rather pull dune or space crusade out these days, and that surprises me.

Fury of Drac: Love it, but I like the reprint more as the chase feels better.

Magic Realm. Never played, might get a print and play copy soon so i'll try it then.


Overall I'm definitly a modern gamer.

Talisman. Titan. Acquire.

We the People

It's funny, as when there was a lot of animosity on BGG a few years ago with AT'ers arguing with the contemporary gamers, I kept saying most of those games just didn't hold up over time. I've played the heck out of all those games on that list and more in the 80's and 90's, and while the experience was fun as hell as I remember, I just haven't been able to bring my self gaming wise back to that point.

It's like Miami Vice. I lived and breathed the love of Miami Vice when I was a teen, and shoot if I could have bought a pastel shouldered suit, I would've sported it through out HS. But I watch it today, and man, did it not hold up very well. The acting is cheesy, the stories are absurd, and the style...well not much left of that.

So reprints of these games don't really excite me that often.

@dragonstout: Philippines. Shipping games over here easily adds 20-30% on top of the cost, so anybody who sells games locally puts a premium on the price. The last Dune copy I heard sold for around 80-100 dollars. Ouch.

I think I'm going to start trying to print Magic Realm. I'm still looking for that perfect adventure game.

Personally I find it hard to believe that Talisman was ever fun.

kookoobah wrote:

I think I'm going to start trying to print Magic Realm. I'm still looking for that perfect adventure game.

I'm always thinking about adventure games, too. What would make the perfect adventure game for you?

Diplomacy was a disappointment. We spent the whole day playing two games back to back. The only thing enjoyable was the Dunkin Donuts that the host provided. Otherwise it was just really long, really slow, and very repetitive.

Talisman was just random. Nothing I did seemed to matter, so I just wandered around rolling dice until I was eliminated. I won't play again.

I really want to like Magic Realm, but the rules that I downloaded are just the perfect cure for insomnia. Every time I read them, I end up taking a nap. I understand that some people are easily flustered by bad die rolls, but Magic Realm replaces dice with an extremely convoluted and deterministic combat system. Likewise, the setup is very convoluted and could have been easily streamlined by replacing it with a deck of encounters and treasures, or even just a chit cup or some CRTs.

I haven't played Titan or TotAN yet, and I probably won't, because there are elements that ruin each game for me. Titan seems like a clumsy and sluggish forerunner to Magic, and the abstract main board is a colorful insult to my eyes. Tales of the Arabian Nights seems to be nothing but random encounters, leaving the player to string together the random events into a semblance of a story. There aren't any meaningful decisions to make or any real strategy to follow.

That's a pretty tough question. I think that Descent is almost there, but it drags on too much. MEQ is also pretty good, but like in Runewars, Corey K has made the quests NOT matter. I mean does anybody even give a shit about why the quests in MEQ or Runewars are being done? We just skip straight to the "how to get the Reward" bit on the card. I think that's bad.

The perfect adventure game. Hmm. Somewhere in between of MEQ, Descent and Arkham Horror I bet.

Have you played Talisman, Prophecy, A Touch of Evil, Runebound?

I thought about it (for all of 2 minutes) and I think the problem with the quests in Runewars is that they have no lasting effect on the hero (alright, I guess that isn't really the focus of Runewars). Even in MEQ, the quests are a bit on the light side.

I guess a Quest tree for each hero would probably be good. Each hero has a main quest, and it's going to be a bit like a choose your own adventure game in that every quest you have gives you different choices on what to do, and that results in changing the path on the Quest tree, with permanent effects on the character as the game progresses.

Something like that anyway.