What kind of articles do you want on the front page?

I tend to like the reviews here because they're not tied up in the "consumption as culture" atmosphere that BGG (and many other places are). I am not interested in a game whose main purpose is to fill a shelf, has anything to do with a "collection" (filling a "hole", being part of a series, being by a beloved designer, simply existing), look "gorgeous", or be some kind of theoretical great deal (tetanus is free; I still don't want it).

I'm in a privileged position. I have access to a bunch of other gamers, several good events in my area, and a DINKy income (money AND free time). If I want to buy a game I can just fucking buy it, and chances are good I have someone to play it at least once. I don't need a review to tell me to buy or own a game. I want a review to tell me if it's worth playing in the first place.

I'm not great at games. I seldom win or come close. For me the fun is in the play. Afterwards I want to feel like something happened. I want there to be some kind of narrative, some kind of excitement, some kind of accomplishment. I like tableau games for this very reason and theoretically should love Agricola except I don't because it presents me with a lot of different things and then punishes me for focusing on any of them, but that's another story.

This is why FAT appeals to me, because AT games (and the games that appeal to fans of them) are highly thematic and immersive. I'm not going to get excited about another game of turning brown cubes into purple cubes that has a unique turn-order system or an interesting spin on an auction. I DO NOT WANT TO IMPRESS ANY MORE FUCKING MAGISTRATES.

Marrying Mr. Darcy is, on paper, a terrible game. It's largely random, there's no strategy, conflict is minimal, and the endgame involves a die roll. It is also fun as hell. Luchador is a game where you may make three decisions, tops, the entire time, and one will be which wrestler you play. It's also fun as hell. DungeonQuest is one of my top ten games and it's almost a co-op because you want to see someone, ANYONE, beat that fucking thing. It's fun as hell. All these games get trashed elsewhere because they aren't heads-down beard-strokers that someone can take 10 minutes per turn contemplating their optimum move. But they're thematic, a session of them always has laughs and trash talk and fun, and they're more memorable than the umpteenth game of Tzolkin or whatever.

What I want a review to tell me is that. How much fun is this? What am I doing in this game? How does it unfold? AT reviewers focus on this because this is what's important to them. AT game reviews almost never do a rules expo because the rules don't matter. Nobody gives a shit how turn order is selected or what the possible actions are. If this comes up, it's usually because that adds some extra level of fun or theme to the game. After I finish a good AT review (such as many of Barnes'), my thing is, "I want to play that game!" That may involve buying it an I can, but shit, I can buy games all the time. I'm buying it because I want to PLAY it. (And, similarly, if it's not getting played, it goes away, even if I really like it.)

So that's what I want to see concerning board games, and although I don't do podcasts or video things, it's not something I regularly see anywhere else. I don't personally care about the "craft" of boardgames, theories of play, design or whatever. Is it fun? Will playing this game be worth my time, when I have scads of entertainment available to me? That's what I want to know.

I honestly feel like if a lot of people stepped up our game, regular users, and wrote up a 4-5 paragraph piece on boardgames every couple weeks or month, we'd have so much content that people would be flocking to the site. That's probably what we need, a daily content stream.

Here's my vote:

I'd like to see more about the //experiences// with games. Like the game itself. Not a session report but a collage of experiences. That's way better than a review.

I'd like to hear from someone who enjoys music, and I mean normal people, not Mr. Barnes. I hate the radio so most of my new music is what I like to listen to, so I get kind of in a rut. New rock, new soul, whatever. Basically I'd like a filter

I think more talk on game design would be great. People's experiences. That's really pretty valuable l