[PA Comic] Friday, January 3, 2014 - The Thirstening

Geth

The Thirstening
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/01/03

<:__)~

Awesome.

miaAusa

WHO DARES DISTRUB THE WATER KING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

his face is funny as he does not share the water

Henroid

Well I'm a Capricorn and we work hard or whatever, so I should be the water carrier.

Athenor

Lotsa synergy with yesterday's post.

I also love the skull right at his feet.

KalTorak

yeah panel 3 definitely just made me laugh very loudly like some sort of doof

Goose!

Birthday comic (Capricorns unite, or not because screw horoscopes)

Gaslight

I got Forbidden Island and we played it a grand total of once. Me and a friend essentially choreographed everybody else's moves the entire game while they sat there apathetically. Is Forbidden Desert any less prone to quarterbacking?

Djiem

Gaslight wrote: »

I got Forbidden Island and we played it a grand total of once. Me and a friend essentially choreographed everybody else's moves the entire game while they sat there apathetically. Is Forbidden Desert any less prone to quarterbacking?

Not really, no. Well, I guess since the next move for a given player is less obvious in this game as there are more choices to make, the apathetic players will be more likely to suggest a move instead of simply agreeing with you as you suggest the only logical course of action.

I find that Atlantis Rising, Dungeon Fighter and Ghost Stories are co-op games that feature a little less quarterbacking.

Then again, the problem isn't with the games so much as the players. Are you being a jerk who wants everyone to do the perfect move you envisionned, or is it that they were apathetic and you just had to step in because they didn't want to decide what to do on their own?

Rufus

We'll

exup35

well I'm a pisces, so I will pee in it and ... um yeah probably better let another group member do it. . . (any virgo's around har har har)

Shadowhope

I'm a Sagittarius, so I possess an attribute that's horse-like.

Gaslight

Djiem wrote: »

Then again, the problem isn't with the games so much as the players. Are you being a jerk who wants everyone to do the perfect move you envisionned, or is it that they were apathetic and you just had to step in because they didn't want to decide what to do on their own?

Well, I'd like to think it was more the latter. As I recall we had the maximum of 4 players plus 2-3 more people sitting at the table who were theoretically interested in the game and going to make suggestions. But in practice me and my one friend who are, well, more strategically minded (usually the ones who invest the deepest thought in devising a strategy for any game we play) were the only ones who displayed any interest in thinking ahead and figuring out who needed to do what and go where to achieve the goal, while everyone else sat there looking sort of bored and having conversations about other random stuff while we did all the work until it was their turn to follow directions.

Hahnsoo1

Well, I'm a Gemini, which means... I have a twin? I'm worth twice as much, human-wise?

I'm lost.

Also, Forbidden Desert is much better than Forbidden Island, in my opinion. Everyone should play it!

MichaelLC

I'm Scorpio so I'll sting you in your goddamn face. See if water helps you then, huh?

Donnicton

Cancer. Which means as a Crab the water is my domain. And if you move even one finger towards my water it's getting snipped off.

Twenty Sided

Shadowhope wrote: »

I'm a Sagittarius, so I possess an attribute that's horse-like.

No, no, no. You're the cavalry and archer merged into one being. You're the ancients' idea of the ultimate weapon of warfare.

Smrtnik

http://www.brianphickey.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/a-rod-centaur.jpg
?

Albino Bunny

Gaslight wrote: »

I got Forbidden Island and we played it a grand total of once. Me and a friend essentially choreographed everybody else's moves the entire game while they sat there apathetically. Is Forbidden Desert any less prone to quarterbacking?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5fHzYtuHBA

The one co-op game truly immune to quaterbacking.

Because no one knows what's happening, at any point, ever.

Djiem

Have you played Space Cadets? How does it compare to Space Alert?

EDIT: I just thought, Escape The Curse of the Temple is also pretty immune to quarterbacking because you're frantically throwing dice to save your life.

Hahnsoo1

Djiem wrote: »

Have you played Space Cadets? How does it compare to Space Alert?

EDIT: I just thought, Escape The Curse of the Temple is also pretty immune to quarterbacking because you're frantically throwing dice to save your life.

Space Cadets has little to do with Space Alert other than theme (misfit crew attempting not to die in a spaceship). They scratch different itches, I think. Space Cadets feels more like Mario Party or Warioware, in that everything is a separate mini-game. Space Alert isn't immune to quarterbacking per se, but it's on a time limit and there are too many options to juggle at the same time. The time limit is the real kicker, as by the time you are done figuring out what to do during your turn, you may have just enough time to "assist" one other person, if that. The soundtrack timer itself prevents too much quarterbacking, as it doles out the events in a constant basis over the length of play (in other words, you can't plan too far ahead). I can see one person quarterbacking the whole thing, but they'd have to be a masterful leader who has the full confidence of their team AND know exactly how to tackle each aspect of the randomized scenarios AND be able to communicate it effectively under time pressure.

Oddly enough, the team competitive Space Cadets: Dice Duel (a different game entirely, but made by the Space Cadets peeps) is more like Escape: the Curse of the Temple.

Comradebot

The Dickerdoodle weiner somehow missed the opportunity to go with "Ebeweiner Splooge" instead of Scrooge.

Blake T

I played this on the weekend.

We won!

Secretagentman

The second panel is great because you can read the speech bubbles in literally any order and the dialogue still makes sense. Or maybe that makes it very, very bad dialogue?

Gaslight

Reminds me of this one:



Although in that case Gabe is somewhat less to blame because the bass-ackwards mechanics of Brink meant that Medics really were the best combat class.

Djiem wrote: »

EDIT: I just thought, Escape The Curse of the Temple is also pretty immune to quarterbacking because you're frantically throwing dice to save your life.

Yes, Escape is as quarterback-proof as any co-op game I've played and a good laugh, though personally I think it's the sort of game you burn out on quickly and need to let sit for a while before getting it out again. And the curse dice as implemented in the official rules seem like a very broken and un-fun mechanic, my group always house rules them to make them less harsh.