What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Time to start playing 0 randomness eurogames?

Found a new local game store! They've been open about two months, and are just a few blocks from work. So that's cool. I pop in while a kid is at gymnastics, and it's board game night! 6:00 to 9:00 I guess. I can only stay for a bit, but I will meet the folks.

...and I am reminded why this hobby makes me crazy sometimes.

First guy is a co-worker. I don't know him, there are 8,000 employees at my company, but still we have that in common. We exchange departments and what not and he takes the time to tell the store employee that MUNCHKIN is not very fun (I agree!) and that it's a game for spouses (and he loses me). He didn't say "female" like all women are clinical specimens, but that was lurking.

Guy #2 shows up and he's on some spectrum. Kind of unwashed, squirrelly, talks about how many games are in the trunk of his car with the other guy. Not holding out a lot of hope here.

I am trying, a brief aside about CATAN comes up, and Guy#1 says he doesn't like how random it is, and how he only likes to play it with the Deck of Dice. You all know what this is? 36 cards, with each possible roll. They shuffle it and use that instead of rolling dice. Because.... fucking who knows. I nod and say, "Wow! We're really different people!" I am at a loss.

Look, I know this post makes me seem like a stuck up asshole, but I am not. These guys are just pushing all the wrong buttons for me.

Guy #3 shows up and seems normal.

Gaming Couple shows up, and break out the prototypes--he's published I think. And I need to head out while they go over the rules to some crazy Chinese Checkers With Roles game.

I am going to try again next week, bringing something quick so I can play before they start on bigass game of the week. But it's going to be a grin an bear it thing until I get more comfortable.

Hit "Reply" instead of "Submit" and lost my post. Not retyping it, so short version: Two games of Fire in the Lake today - VC won both - favorite COIN game now.

Xwing 3 games yesterday, playing mostly with the outrider and Decimator. Both are awesome, but kind of make me yearn for typical 4 xwing vs tie fighter swarm games.
Xwing tournament today, super dash and corran horn. Ended up with 1 loss, 58-44 I had two hull points to kill on his Decimator and time ran out. My corran was at full health. Only a 60 minute game, if they would have been the normal 75 minutes I would have got the last two hull points. Had this moment of awesome flying happen:


Ysanne Isard crew works really well against 2 ship lists, poorly against 4+ ship lists. Got the Han Solo alt card, scimitar alt card and 5! Acrylic cloak tokens

That's all I played, was xwing, but any weekend you play 6 games of a favorite is a good weekend

jeb wrote: Found a new local game store! They've been open about two months, and are just a few blocks from work. So that's cool. I pop in while a kid is at gymnastics, and it's board game night! 6:00 to 9:00 I guess. I can only stay for a bit, but I will meet the folks.

...and I am reminded why this hobby makes me crazy sometimes.

First guy is a co-worker. I don't know him, there are 8,000 employees at my company, but still we have that in common. We exchange departments and what not and he takes the time to tell the store employee that MUNCHKIN is not very fun (I agree!) and that it's a game for spouses (and he loses me). He didn't say "female" like all women are clinical specimens, but that was lurking.

Guy #2 shows up and he's on some spectrum. Kind of unwashed, squirrelly, talks about how many games are in the trunk of his car with the other guy. Not holding out a lot of hope here.

I am trying, a brief aside about CATAN comes up, and Guy#1 says he doesn't like how random it is, and how he only likes to play it with the Deck of Dice. You all know what this is? 36 cards, with each possible roll. They shuffle it and use that instead of rolling dice. Because.... fucking who knows. I nod and say, "Wow! We're really different people!" I am at a loss.

Look, I know this post makes me seem like a stuck up asshole, but I am not. These guys are just pushing all the wrong buttons for me.

Guy #3 shows up and seems normal.

Gaming Couple shows up, and break out the prototypes--he's published I think. And I need to head out while they go over the rules to some crazy Chinese Checkers With Roles game.

I am going to try again next week, bringing something quick so I can play before they start on bigass game of the week. But it's going to be a grin an bear it thing until I get more comfortable.

It's not about being a stuck up asshole, it's about being in a low hit rate environment. It's likely you'll run into somebody that shares your viewpoint and you'll recognize each other instantly, but it may take a while and it's more about commonality than hierarchy.

I would have moved past those guys too. Catan Cards are the worst invention in gaming as far as I'm concerned. But others think they're a must-have for the game.

S.

I'm not sure I understand. So is the idea to replace the dice with cards and then as the game goes on to go through all of them? Or is it literally to replace dice with something that does exactly the same thing by reshuffling them?

#1 would be horrible too, since it would basically turn everything into a card count once you got to the last, say, 10-15 cards. All kinds of bizarre behaviors based on what the composition of the card deck was left in something like Catan.

Three pro tips to help you identify someone you should never game with- if Joe Gamer says:

"I own a deck of dice" (for any reason other than as a joke)
"I will ONLY play game X a CERTAIN way" (with much bluster)
Or
"I need to get some play testing done tonight" (or anything to do about their "prototype")

RUN THE FUCK AWAY.

Unless on #3 it's somebody on the level of Ignacy, Rob Daviau or Reiner Knizia.

Gary Sax wrote: Robinson Crusoe. Amazing game. Gets better the more you know it. Lots of subtleties that don't become clear till you play multiple times re: the decks.

Played this last night for the first time in several months, and I've resolved to bring it back out a lot more... It is so great, and I still have to work through the Darwin campaign expansion, which I've only barely touched. We played 4p with the Robinson Family scenario. That's supposed to be super hard, apparently, but we breezed to a win in the 7th round. I'm feeling like the scaling is not very good in the game; seems very hard with 1-2 and often easy with the full 4. I know it tries to scale by adding Friday and the Dog with fewer players and changing the cost of wood/fur for shelters, but it still seems like having more people and pawns to do stuff will always make it easier, especially on that scenario where you have to build a ton of stuff. I tried imagining doing that well (winning in round 7) as a solo or 2p game and couldn't remotely imagine that happening.

Game 13 of Risk: Legacy and it was a wild one that swung a few different ways. I was poised to win on my next turn, but another guy backed into the win by completing a mission for another point without even realizing it.

King of New York, also, and I squeaked out a very close win.

My nephew finally wasn't in trouble or occupied with his family's crazy busy schedule so I managed to get him out for some Wings of Glory. There were two other regulars up at the shop so we formed up teams and and played a 8 plane dogfight (four per side). My nephew and I were flying two Fokkers, an Albatross and a Hinkersomethingorother. We went up against a Moraine-Sauer (man I butcher these names), two Spads and an Arco.

We just played with the basic rules keeping everything simple for everyone. Three of the four planes on my Nephew's and my side were able to focus some fire on a Spad piling up a good stack of damage cards, eventually the Explosion card was drawn and it burst into a ball of fire. My Albatross got caught up in some fire as well and developed a healthy stack of cards during that exchange. Meanwhile the fourth plane on our side went Lone Wolf as my nephew felt his way through learning how the planes move in the game. I think he just wanted to take on the other two enemy planes that was taking a long flanking maneuver before heading towards the engagement.

A few turns later and the planes were in a jumbled mess. Eventually my nephew's Lone Wolf turned back around and I exclaimed "Maverick's reengaging Sir!" and promptly realized that there likely isn't a single 4th Grader on Earth that would understand that reference. Right around this time the Moraine decided to go off on his own areal survey. Another swirling mess of cloth and wood saw my Albatross build up a bigger stack of damage cards, my Fokker explode, my nephew's Fokker be blown apart and our opponent's go down an Arco (who I pumped a lot of shots in and seemed to be able to draw nothing but 0's or 1's for damage).

That left me out of the game, my nephew down to his Heindersomethingorother against a Moraine and Spad. The Spad flew away eventually turning around which allowed gunfire to exchange and damage to my nephew's plan and a pile of 0's to the Moraine. Since my earlier recommendation to my nephew didn't pan out well I let him try out his own plan of trying to out-fox his opponent's by taking a wide turn instead of busting out an Immelmen. At this point the Spad was reengaged so this gave his adversaries a few turns of shooting without much retaliation. My nephew out-thought himself and his plane fell to the ground.

As it turned out both of the remaining planes were limping home both with only two body points left to give, had just one or two cards been different in a run of six 0's in a row my nephew may have pulled it out.

It was a fantastic game...And my nephew, who can get a bit on the energetic side, was calm, focused and engaged the entire time which was about an hour and 45 mins. I hope to get him again for a few hours in the next couple of weeks and I hope bust out the Standard Rules because he has the basic ones down.

He wanted to check out the Warmachine players so he watched them for a bit and I and four other people busted out Sheriff of Nottingham. A bluffing/bribing type game. Damn I'm getting so bored of those. My nephew came back to watch the last half of the game and he seemed interested though because it allows a person to lie and not get in trouble for it (which was the cause of his most recent grounding).

Overall, more Wings of Glory and less Sheriff of Nottingham is what I learned.

I have to agree with you on Sheriff. I was anticipating that game, and I've played it at least a half dozen times now. It's a fun concept, but the problem is the game never changes. You're doing the same thing on turn one that you are on turn ten. Bargaining feels limited even though you can bargain with literally anything in the game, which is a red flag itself. The subtle area majority game is a nice touch, and I still play it when folks want to, but I'm glad I didn't pick it up.

Played Sheriiff tonight myself. My gang didn't like it...and they generally like games about lying. I dunno, it's cute and I do like it better than I did Hart der Grenze...but I'm starting to think that there are too many cute social deduction/treachery games. One of my friends said it best, really- "Intrigue is half the rules of this game and twice as good". We have kind of running joke with these kinds of games...BSG, Coup, etc...one person says "you're lying" and the other says "no I'm not". Which sort of sums up this genre in a nutshell. That's a good point about the repetition...but that is one of the things that makes these games accessible. It's really up to the player interaction to make something different out of subsequent turns.

Also played Imperial Settlers...really liked it, so far. Nothing groundbreaking,
but really fun to play.

Gary Sax wrote: Time to start playing 0 randomness eurogames?

no thanks! The only euros I own are Tigris and El Grande (and Innovation /Race as card games) so I'm obviously a glutton for punishment haha

It can be a bit tougher in TS because sometimes the luck distracts you from where you are going wrong, so it's more of a nutpunch only in that regard. I wouldn't want to replace the dice with a deck of dice that Jeb was on about!

jeb wrote:
Look, I know this post makes me seem like a stuck up asshole, but I am not. These guys are just pushing all the wrong buttons for me.
.

The sad fact is its a hobby that has a high population fraction of people you would not want to hang around with in a million years. Which is why you guys that were groups of actual friends who then discovered games and played them should count your blessings, for everyone else, trying to get involved in game groups, or organize home groups, or get in touch with other "gamers" is more likely than not to lead to a lot of hanging out with people you described in your post. As gamers we only pretend that "normal" people are indeed the norm, but hardcore boardgamers? forget it. And it's the reason why when you talk to your normal friends about games, most of them look at you like you are a mentally ill child who dresses up in armour and magicians robes while pretending to be Harry Potter. I've had to physically force colleagues at work to look at a map of Twilight Struggle and try to show some of the text on the cards to "prove" that this game I was talking about online wasn't some kind of vampire werewolf teenage fantasy masturbation club involving grooming underage girls.

Its one of the advantages of playing Twilight Struggle - its a perfect cover for when you are in fact involved in a large underground network grooming underage girls to play along in your sadistic vampire sex fantasies

Sunday our DCC game was cancelled because the DM had to drive to Ft. Wayne, Indiana to play thrash metal, so I invited a friend over to play some 2p games.

We started off with a half dozen or so games of Netrunner. I am digging this game so much. I'm planning to catch up on the data packs, which I previously stopped buying after the first cycle. The first few games we played the base game theme decks since my friend was only somewhat familiar with the game. I love how well these seven decks play together, the base box for this game was put together so well, and you really could just get by on it alone if you didn't want to buy in. Then we switched to two decks I'd built, and we found that my runner deck was way too slow and he crushed me every game (I won every game with the theme decks). Can't say enough positive things about this, one of the greatest card games around.

Then we played one game of one of those AEG small card games, Agent Hunter. I got this as a throw in with a trade and I can see why. The game works fine but there's nearly nothing to it. In the middle of this 5 minute game I looked at him and said "this is pretty awful isn't it?" Nothing but a micro game cash in. Avoid completely.

After that we played a few games of Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper. This game is great if you're into rummy style games. It's kind of convoluted but after a hand it makes sense. Basically in each hand you play out the saga of Jack the Ripper and usually figure out who he is, but if he kills five victims he could potentially get away. Very well designed game, especially considering the engine. I'm not sure 100 is a good point total to play to, but that's easily tinkered with.

Was that a Spad VII or a Spad XIII? The XIIIs can't turn a corner and are boring as hell to fly.

At meeptups I play stupid, because the big talkers don't expend the energy on someone not sufficiently aware enough to be impressed. Keeps the speeches shorter.

The thing is, there's likely someone nearby that's a great fit for your group and about the only way to find them is to mix a bit. So now and again you have to go to a mixer or two. The last one I went to had two guys that clearly had social challenges (real ones) and another guy that was a little wonky. But the rest were solid members of normalcy. No keepers though.

S.