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Transitional games- gather round the table!

TinMan1997TinMan1997 Registered User regular
edited September 2006 in Critical Failures
What games do you think make a good transition for people who do a lot of video gaming? Useful stuff would probably be familiar themes, easily taught, simple scoring, and no player elimination. I mean, Risk is fun, but if you get knocked out 20 minutes into a three hour game, you're gonna be pissed.

I don't do any RPG'ing anymore (can't commit to the regular timing), but boardgame wise...

Zombies!!!

Everybody loves zombies, world's simplest combat system, respawns, and visually great- dozens of plastic zombies chasing you around and awesome card art. Downsides? The game can bog down a bit at times, and at least in the first edition some of the cards were a bit confusing.

Carcassonne

The expanding, modular board is cool, everyone loves meeples, and it is really a kickass little game (good transitional game, but hardcore gamers will play it too). Downsides? Scoring the frikkin farmers is a pain for even experienced players.

Ticket To Ride

The easiest game in the world to teach, so you can concievably even play it with Grandma and Grandpa. Also, just a really good game. Downsides are that it is going to be pretty dry for someone used to sophisticated videogames.

Others that might be good- Shadows Over Camelot (I've only played it once), Heroscape (never played, looks expensive)... anyone tried these or had another suggestion?

Also- any RPGs out there that you can "do" in one evening?

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TinMan1997 on

Posts

  • JohnnyCacheJohnnyCache Starting Defense Place at the tableRegistered User regular
    edited September 2006
    Oh man...

    Munchkin!

    And the Illuminati non-collectable game.

    Both are hilarious games of screw-thy-neighbor.

    JohnnyCache on
  • The CelestialThe Celestial Registered User regular
    edited September 2006
    Zombies is like the best thing ever when you have time to burn. We busted it out once during an exercise (basically nothing but free time in chemical gear) and were able to drag two or three guys into the game that don't really ever play games and look at us weird when we talk about Hit Points and Mana.

    One of the guys was into it. I mean really into it; throwing down trash talk like a veteran Counterstrike player.

    To this day, he asks when the next time we can play it is.

    The Celestial on
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  • XieflowXieflow Registered User regular
    edited September 2006
    on Carcassonne : The game itself is good fun, and I really like playing it. I even picked up one of the many expansions... "The Count". Which, in my opinion, actually ends up making the game less fun. The Count tries to give you incentive for completing other peoples stuff, and pulls it off OK (however, in my group, most people thought it added too much complication to a very light / fluff game that is supposed to be the brain-relaxer between more complicated fare), but my big issue with it is it's handled so... poorly.

    The way the expansion works is, you get like a dozen tiles that form the city of Carcassonne itself. Cool, right? Wrong. There is no gameplay in placing them. They are all numbered and must be placed in the same order every time. After that, the basics of the expansion are, if you complete something for another player, and don't score any points yourself, you can put a meeple inside of the city, and then whenever something is completed after that, you can pull the guy out of the city to place him on the freshly completed thing (road, city, cloister), in an effort to nab more points. So far so good, right? Adds a lot more complication, but hopefully makes the game more "interactive".

    However, the way the city works is, there are 4 areas within the city. Each area matches up to either farms, cloisters, roads, or cities. Your meeple can only "steal" points if you had placed him in the correct corresponding city area (so if a road is completed, but your guy is in the cloister section in carcassone, you can't steal). This itself is fine, the big issue is the way they present this to you sucks. The tiles in the Carasonne city aren't labled, so you'll constantly be looking in the rulebook to remember "if I put my meeple here can he steal cities or roads?".

    On top of all that, you add the Count himself who travels the city, and if he's in the same space as your guy, you can't pop your guy out of the city onto the completed road/cloister/city/(farm at the end of the game). You can move the count when you put a meeple into the city.

    The expansion felt like a complete ripoff, even at the $5 or so, because after playing with it, it just felt like it actually would have been easier just to write the 4 areas on a sheet of paper and use a penny as the count.

    The included river expansion, on the other hand, did feel like it added quite a bit to the game, more or less in the form of new tiles, and especially in a method that makes farms slightly more interesting (but we still end up half the time discovering that the farms end up combining to form a super farm that covers the entire board)

    A final word on Carcassonne : It's a tile laying game, so avoid using it as a filler game before or after more meaty tile laying games. We played it after Betrayal at the House on the Hill once (itself could be argued to be a transitional game, but I think it's fun enough to be the gaming focus of the evening usually), and everyone was just tiled-out at that point.

    Xieflow on
  • INeedNoSaltINeedNoSalt with blood on my teeth Registered User regular
    edited September 2006
    ZOMBIES!!! rocks, but it gets really messy towards the end when people just keep throwing more and more zombies down the last few tiles to the helipad. :O

    INeedNoSalt on
  • Der Waffle MousDer Waffle Mous Blame this on the misfortune of your birth. New Yark, New Yark.Registered User regular
    edited September 2006
    Zombies kicks all kinds of ass.






    I once won by use of the "lets go someplace quiet :winky:" card.

    Der Waffle Mous on
    Steam PSN: DerWaffleMous Origin: DerWaffleMous Bnet: DerWaffle#1682
  • TinMan1997TinMan1997 Registered User regular
    edited September 2006
    With Carc- "Keep it simple." Vanilla Carcassonne, the River, and don't add any of the other expansions until you really, really know what you're doing. :)

    One I totally forgot (which might be good for role-playing transitional...)

    Betrayal at House on the Hill!!!

    They have this one on Toys R Us online for Twenty bucks including shipping, and it is totally awesome. The rules take a little bit to understand, but you've got all the basic stuff- characters with changeable statistics, Monsters, weapons... and then one of you turns into a monster and tries to kick everyone's ass. :D

    Oh man, but I miss getting to play this...[/url]

    TinMan1997 on
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  • mccmcc glitch Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited September 2006
    Really, y'know, get a good combat-oriented D&D campaign going, and almost anyone who's played a lot of tactical RPGs will feel right at home.

    mcc on
  • VisibleDuctsVisibleDucts Registered User regular
    edited September 2006
    TinMan1997 wrote:
    With Carc- "Keep it simple." Vanilla Carcassonne, the River, and don't add any of the other expansions until you really, really know what you're doing. :)

    One I totally forgot (which might be good for role-playing transitional...)

    Betrayal at House on the Hill!!!

    They have this one on Toys R Us online for Twenty bucks including shipping, and it is totally awesome. The rules take a little bit to understand, but you've got all the basic stuff- characters with changeable statistics, Monsters, weapons... and then one of you turns into a monster and tries to kick everyone's ass. :D

    Oh man, but I miss getting to play this...[/url]
    That is an amazing deal! A local gameshop is currently selling it for half off and its still over 20 there.

    VisibleDucts on
  • TDLTDL ClubPA, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited September 2006
    Settlers of Catan is a great intoductory game.

    TDL on
    Meet me on my vast veranda
    My sweet, untouched Miranda
    And while the seagulls are crying
    We fall but our souls are flying
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