TRASHDOME! PICK UP AND DELIVERY (sorta)

Merchants of Venus is good but dated. Firefly is good, maybe even great, but it needs an expansion to get there. Merchants and Marauders is the perfect P&D game.

MERCHANTS AND MARAUDERS

A game that should be in the honorable mention category is Return of the Heroes.

Firefly

Merchants and Marauders > Merchant of Venus >>>>>>>>>>>> Firefly.

I like all 3 actually but M & M wins handily.

Wow, three of my favorite games. FIREFLY, however, is just so full of flavor and color. I am influenced by my love of the show, but the way this game brings that world to life is delightful. When I play I am not a board gamer, I am a space pirate!

I am going to go apeshit if you guys vote Firefly as best pick up and deliver from this group. And I like and own Firefly, it's just a shitty, random pick up and deliver. Solid card flip adventure/narrative generator game though.

Gary Sax wrote: I am going to go apeshit if you guys vote Firefly as best pick up and deliver from this group. And I like and own Firefly, it's just a shitty, random pick up and deliver. Solid card flip adventure/narrative generator game though.

Yeah...some standoff results just don't make any sense...Ha!

VOTE: Merchants and Marauders. M&M is a well-designed game with a theme/setting that comes through really well. The chrome works to support the gameplay. In contrast, Firefly is mostly a mess with clunky should-have-been-streamlined mechanics (ie the travel deck) and unpleasant randomness (the misbehaving deck). Yes, I enjoyed building my crew + ship and making money off missions, but there are rough spots that sink the game for me. As for Merchants of Venus, well I'll be honest and say that I've never played MoV, but that's by choice - it looked slow and dated when I read through the rules.

Merchant of Venus - never played it.

Firefly - big fan of the series but was actually bored playing the game. It just seemed to drag and it really fell flat for me. Disappointing.

Merchants & Marauders - great theme, beautiful components, lots of fluff, and I love the ship combat mechanics.

Vote: Merchants & Marauders

It's a pretty close contest right now, with M&M having a slight lead thanks to the latest couple of voters.

Merchant of Venus

I gotta toss my vote to MoV. Whether you're playing the AH or the FFG version you're playing an all time classic. It has a basic set of rules that are easy to internalize so you can focus on the game quickly. Plus it has that goofball sci-fi motif that I love. Trading "The Finest Dust" and "Designer Genes"...shit is golden.

I also dig how wide open the game is. There isn't any pressure on you to do any one thing. If you want to upgrade your ship...go ahead. If you just want to run around exploring...nothing will stop you. It feels like an adventure, but you still need to figure out how to exploit the galaxy and make money.

Plus with the recent FFG/SH reprint you get two games for the price of one. If you want a more strictly pick up and deliver game...you go with the Classic Ruleset. Though if you want something with a little more chrome and FFG tinkering then you have the that ruleset as a decent variant. Tons of bang for your buck. I think it was one of the best reprints they've ever done.

Edit - The only real knock I have on MoV is the setup time and the ridiculous amount of tokens you have to sort. I'm not one of these fancy gamers that has little tackles boxes with all the shit ready to go. It takes a solid 25 mins to get this game fully loaded and ready to play. Other than that though...I love it.

I enjoy Merchants and Marauders quite a bit too...very excited to see what that expansion brings. I've yet to play Fire Fly. My love for the show means I'm predisposed to loving it though. Really need to play that/buy that.