I swear I thought this was a parody.

Quite literally the easiest theme to paste onto anything. Take a bunch of disparate, typical 'euro' mechanics (i.e. worker placement, resource conversion), stuff them into a victory point-churning framework, and ensure no one is directly interacting—the players should be thinking about how to be most efficient at turning X into Y then into VP. The game should feel like mathematical puzzle busywork. Think to yourself, 'hey, the players are basically doing algebra, how about we theme the game with something else unfun… I know, medieval toil and drudgery! We'll make the players serfs trying to grow enough potatoes for their regional lord! It's only been done a few thousand times, there's still life in the genre!'

Voilà, Spiel de Jahres award winner and bestseller, if you're a designer with a recognizable name. Otherwise, do the same thing half a dozen more times and people will eventually catch on.

Michael Barnes wrote: Well, at least it wasn't creative juice.

Or milch und gurken.

I'm finishing up a PhD in water quality (pollution) management. Cutting dykes, deforestation, and dehydrating are all terrible land management practices in terms of long term sustainability. I therefore must take a stand against this irresponsible product and declare a boycott.

Man, I didn't know whether to laugh or shake my head when I saw this thread on BGG .

Jexik wrote: Man, I didn't know whether to laugh or shake my head when I saw this thread on BGG .

I want to laugh and all, but I really do have some pet designers and then I feel like a hypocrite.

I actually have a ton of Rosenberg games. I like his stuff. I might trade it off later, but I'll take a crack.

Pretty much everything Chvatil makes I will try. The only "let down" so far is PROPHECY, and even that is pretty fun.

I think I have every game Sirlin has made except for that Panda one. Poker does nothing for me.

It's hard for me to complain about folks liking a designer, or a designer going back to the well that has produced so much. I spent a lot of money on Richard Launius because he likes to treat 5s and 6s as success.

It's just not the kind of question I'd find myself asking. I don't buy enough games to have to limit myself to "just 5" of one designer, unless you count expansions. Which I guess loops back to my earlier statement that new games are like expansions to Euro fans. I couldn't even think of five games from Rosenberg off the top of my head until I read the thread.

I mean, I like Richard Garfield. I like Magic, King of Tokyo, and Roborally. But I'm not gonna run out and get Ghooost even if I did think it was pretty neat. I don't have KoT yet either, but I think I will eventually because my nephew loves it.

Double Post. I nearly broke the Internet.

The funny part about the Rosenberg thread was that she set the limit at five. You can just hear the gears turning in her head as she wrote it, probably starting with three, realizing that she didn't want to leave any of her favorites out of the list, ok, FOUR. No! Five! Five favorites! It would have been six if there had been another Rosenberg title she liked.

S.