TRASHDOME! PICK UP AND DELIVERY (sorta)

woo! I've actually played/owned all three of these.

Merchants of Venus is the best classic pick up and deliver of these. Probably the cleanest ruleset and best if you are into the economic side of these things to go with a helping of adventure.

Firefly has the best feeling of building up and improving your crew/ship out of the three. Getting the right crew with the right gear for a job is great. It really needs the pirates and bounty hunters expansion to get that threat of attacking each other. The misbehave checks are almost too random and hard to plan for.

Merchants and marauders is probably the most open ended and best adventure. so many ways to get points, from being a merchant to going on little quests to being a pirate and hunting your fellow players down. While you do buy upgrades for the ships, they don't feel as substantial as the firefly crew upgrades. Nothing in the other two games comes close to the feeling of going up against a Man O War and winning though. I wish the warships and AI pirates were alittle more interactive.

Close, but I'll put my vote in for Firefly with the pirates and bounty hunters expansion.

Merchant of Venus

I vote Merchant of Venus because I haven't played my copy of M+M. But if someone says they want pure pick up and deliver, I say Merchant of Venus to them. Mainly, this is a vote against Firefly, it pales mechanically in comparison with both the others.

I feel that Firefly is more Adventure game with the character being the ship and the gear being the crew. The moving of goods and what have you in the game is just the "work" that you need to do in order to buy more and better goods and to progress throughout the adventure. Just like beating up on monsters. It doesn't feel like who moves the goods gooder wins, but who puts together the best ship and crew.

Merchants and Marauders I think does Pickup and Deliver better when you're a merchant. And I like that you can alter your course of action throughout the game. There's so much fluff and character to the game that it really is immersive. I just like that there are so many paths to take and so many options provided.

Merchants of Venus, I've owned longer than the other two and have played zero times. It just looks archaic vs the other games.

Firefly is good, but I don't think of it as pickup and deliver.

So my vote goes to Merchants and Marauders.

I played Firefly last night. I neither picked up, nor delivered anything. Except bounties. Maybe they count.

I'm interested to know more about Merchants and Marauders, because I keep looking at it (pirates, yarr, etc) but haven't got an angle on how it plays.

JEM wrote: I played Firefly last night. I neither picked up, nor delivered anything. Except bounties. Maybe they count.

They count. You're picking up the bounty in one place then bringing them to wherever the card says to get paid.

Well, my wife mostly made some crime. Anyhow, what about Xia?

Based on one play of just one of these games, I vote for Firefly. It is probably the worst of the games in this trashdome, and certainly way too chrome-laden and fiddly to be considered a well-designed pickup and delivery game. But I just really enjoy the Firefly show and even the movie, and playing the boardgame brought back many fond memories.

JEM wrote: Anyhow, what about Xia?

Xia is great but Merchants and Marauders is better.

Merchant of Venus