Welp, I'm a consumer whore. I just joined the Dark Souls boardgame kickstarter, as well as preordered Cardborne. Especially since Dark Souls can be played solo, and therefore, NO INVASIONS FUCK YOU PVPS!
I fully expect one of the rules of Darks Souls is that if you're playing somewhere in public, anyone can walk up to your game, slam a figure down on the board, and yell "Fuck you fight me!"
I think a more accurate metaphor would be if someone can come into your home and push your board and pieces off the table.
Welp, I'm a consumer whore. I just joined the Dark Souls boardgame kickstarter, as well as preordered Cardborne. Especially since Dark Souls can be played solo, and therefore, NO INVASIONS FUCK YOU PVPS!
I fully expect one of the rules of Darks Souls is that if you're playing somewhere in public, anyone can walk up to your game, slam a figure down on the board, and yell "Fuck you fight me!"
"This is an amiibo-"
"YOU'RE AN AMIIBO!"
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jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
I think there's an important distinction to be made between emergent narrative and more directed, internal narrative.
Only in the sense that one is a boardgame narrative, and the other is not.
Any medium defines the parameters of how a story is told, and by extension what we understand as narrative (cf. McLuhan). It follows that a narrative told through the medium of a boardgame follows different patterns, manifests itself differently and is seeded differently than that of a novel or a film.
The biggest mistake in my opinon that designers do when attempting to put narrative into a game is following the narrative forms and conventions in other media. You can't just cut up a graphic novel into pretty pictures, plaster them all over cards and call the result a "narrative game". It's hacky and a waste. Imagine somebody videotaping a readthrough of a script and calling the result a "film narrative". It is that only in the loosest sense of the term, and takes no advantage of the medium's inherent strengths.
Boardgames are no different. Any boardgame that does not incorporate the medium's unique qualities (like interactivity, like the overlap of protagonist & audience, etc.) fails as a narrative boardgame. But that doesn't mean that narrative and gaming is at odds with one another. Gaming is only at odds with narratives as they are told in other, static media.
Great point. My only disagreement with you is with your bolded statement, in that you call it a "mistake". It's totally legitimate, and in fact very successful, to add book-narrative to a board game. If that makes it less "gamey", well some people like games that are not very gamey. I like it sometimes as well. Playing Arabian Nights can be incredibly fun, especially with people I know and care about. But I agree it's naturally of less interest to a board game thread like this one.
Admittedly, it's preference pure and simple. I'd rather designers tried to develop and expand what boardgames can offer, instead of simply mimicking other, more established narrative media. But then again, it took quite a long while for novels to really take advantage of what the medium offered. The same is true for film.
I'm just really impatient.
It's my strong preference as well. One reason I like Archipelago is because it really tries to merge the different types of game narrative; that is, when you tell a "game story", it actually makes sense to non-gamers, which still having the narrative tightly bound to the game mechanics. It also is an "exploration" game, where you bring out new tiles and expand the game space, but also you don't know when the end of the game is or what gives points, so you need to "explore" how to win the game as you play it. I feel like this is an example of a board game doing things only a board game can do.
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
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Yo, is Legendary Predator as good as Encounters (Alien)? Because Encounters is fucking dope, so...
Slightly less good, still better than regular Legendary imo.
Quoting Arnold from the Predator movie never gets old so that adds alot to my enjoyment of the game. Bet I would love the Alien version as well but my copy was F'ed with missing cards and I'm to lazy to fix it.
Yo, is Legendary Predator as good as Encounters (Alien)? Because Encounters is fucking dope, so...
Slightly less good, still better than regular Legendary imo.
Quoting Arnold from the Predator movie never gets old so that adds alot to my enjoyment of the game. Bet I would love the Alien version as well but my copy was F'ed with missing cards and I'm to lazy to fix it.
Is it that hard to get them replaced? I thought it was just an email.
You know... eventually my group is going to play Scythe by the correct rules.
Just now discovered that Polania's "Camaraderie" ability only applies when you crush workers in combat. Stomping undefended workers is still penalized. In retrospect this is obvious ("in combat" are literally the first words written on the ability) but easy to overlook.
Not that this would have affected last night's win by Polania (would only have been relevant once and they had enough popularity for it to not matter), but they might not be the 4-0 we've experienced if we had been doing things correctly.
Yo, is Legendary Predator as good as Encounters (Alien)? Because Encounters is fucking dope, so...
Slightly less good, still better than regular Legendary imo.
Quoting Arnold from the Predator movie never gets old so that adds alot to my enjoyment of the game. Bet I would love the Alien version as well but my copy was F'ed with missing cards and I'm to lazy to fix it.
Is it that hard to get them replaced? I thought it was just an email.
I guess not but I live in sweden and I also had to make a list of all the cards I had in to know whats missing.
Yo, is Legendary Predator as good as Encounters (Alien)? Because Encounters is fucking dope, so...
Slightly less good, still better than regular Legendary imo.
Quoting Arnold from the Predator movie never gets old so that adds alot to my enjoyment of the game. Bet I would love the Alien version as well but my copy was F'ed with missing cards and I'm to lazy to fix it.
Is it that hard to get them replaced? I thought it was just an email.
I guess not but I live in sweden and I also had to make a list of all the cards I had in to know whats missing.
I guess they could be difficult about it. They may be cool and just eat the cost of replacing though, like Queen did for me. Cost them 20 euro (? I think it was that, approx $30USD iirc) to ship me the missing board pieces from Germany to the US.
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SixCaches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhexRegistered Userregular
I just wish Arabian Nights was shorter. That thing takes forever. The game we tried of it hit three hours and no one was even close to finishing.
Or, at least, for someone to make an app for it that does the management stuff. That'd be sweet.
We really won't play with any count but three any more because of the length. It's an amazing experience and always good for laughs, but it's just too long. We also don't like playing with a much lower point total because then everyone's "tales" feel kind of half-baked. The game is great when your character has been around long enough to get turned into an ape and then get a pet hairless ape and then get a sex change (which happened to my wife).
Fans of Paperback probably want to check out the KS for Word Domination. You're a 70s Bond villain stealing artifacts and things by making words from letter tiles, but your opponents can block your attempts to steal a given letter by also using it. Even better: you can suggest plays to other players and get rewarded for it!
Tim Fowers is only a consultant on this (and hooked the designer up with his artist), but it looks every bit as solid as his stuff.
You know... eventually my group is going to play Scythe by the correct rules.
Just now discovered that Polania's "Camaraderie" ability only applies when you crush workers in combat. Stomping undefended workers is still penalized. In retrospect this is obvious ("in combat" are literally the first words written on the ability) but easy to overlook.
Not that this would have affected last night's win by Polania (would only have been relevant once and they had enough popularity for it to not matter), but they might not be the 4-0 we've experienced if we had been doing things correctly.
We finally had a Polania win last week. It feels like the strength of that faction depends a ton on which board you get to go with it, and what your first encounter is. If neither one helps you get mechs going in a hurry, it seems like you're in a huge hole.
Also that game, I played the smurfs (blue) for the first time. That faction also feels awful to me - I literally had zero stars placed when the game ended. It was frustrating because it felt like I got off to a decent start and was Doing Things, but I didn't quite manage to get any stars placed. I was at like 5/6 upgrades, 3/4 buildings, 7/8 workers, 3/4 mechs, and was just short of finishing my secret objective (end a turn with $20 in cash).
You know... eventually my group is going to play Scythe by the correct rules.
Just now discovered that Polania's "Camaraderie" ability only applies when you crush workers in combat. Stomping undefended workers is still penalized. In retrospect this is obvious ("in combat" are literally the first words written on the ability) but easy to overlook.
Not that this would have affected last night's win by Polania (would only have been relevant once and they had enough popularity for it to not matter), but they might not be the 4-0 we've experienced if we had been doing things correctly.
We finally had a Polania win last week. It feels like the strength of that faction depends a ton on which board you get to go with it, and what your first encounter is. If neither one helps you get mechs going in a hurry, it seems like you're in a huge hole.
Also that game, I played the smurfs (blue) for the first time. That faction also feels awful to me - I literally had zero stars placed when the game ended. It was frustrating because it felt like I got off to a decent start and was Doing Things, but I didn't quite manage to get any stars placed. I was at like 5/6 upgrades, 3/4 buildings, 7/8 workers, 3/4 mechs, and was just short of finishing my secret objective (end a turn with $20 in cash).
I've won once with Nordic but it wasn't easy. Last night I was also the viking team and it looked like I was getting out to an early lead but couldn't convert that into actual points.
Nords are weird because none of their abilities are stand out crazy.
Like artillery is great but you probably wont be fighting enough for it to matter.
The ability to not need river walk is okay for your workers bu tyou still need a mech for movement efficiency and to get your character off your island.
The Nord lake ability is one of my favorite in the game. It lets you do some nasty raids on people who think they're safe (The Red home territories, most notably... which I learned to my detriment ).
The Nord lake ability is one of my favorite in the game. It lets you do some nasty raids on people who think they're safe (The Red home territories, most notably... which I learned to my detriment ).
Edit: wait submerge is Polania, I mixed them up.
Neah Nord Lake < Polania Lake. Like... it's best use is when losing a battle? In some very specific hexes?
Fans of Paperback probably want to check out the KS for Word Domination. You're a 70s Bond villain stealing artifacts and things by making words from letter tiles, but your opponents can block your attempts to steal a given letter by also using it. Even better: you can suggest plays to other players and get rewarded for it!
Tim Fowers is only a consultant on this (and hooked the designer up with his artist), but it looks every bit as solid as his stuff.
Yeah, I'm seriously considering dropping the $250 to get my wife in the game as a villain as a late-Valentine's Day surprise.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
The Nord lake ability is one of my favorite in the game. It lets you do some nasty raids on people who think they're safe (The Red home territories, most notably... which I learned to my detriment ).
Edit: wait submerge is Polania, I mixed them up.
Neah Nord Lake < Polania Lake. Like... it's best use is when losing a battle? In some very specific hexes?
Nord lake can be brutal if you position your guys right, but yea it's a lot more situational.
You know... eventually my group is going to play Scythe by the correct rules.
Just now discovered that Polania's "Camaraderie" ability only applies when you crush workers in combat. Stomping undefended workers is still penalized. In retrospect this is obvious ("in combat" are literally the first words written on the ability) but easy to overlook.
Not that this would have affected last night's win by Polania (would only have been relevant once and they had enough popularity for it to not matter), but they might not be the 4-0 we've experienced if we had been doing things correctly.
holy shit
Powerpuppies on
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
We've had some Polania dominance as well
But the biggest win margins have been on Nord wins from one guy who seems to understand them really well
Somehow he manages to get the resources he needs and produce a lot and then get like 40 points by having tons of territory claimed by workers and buildings and 7+ popularity
we havent quite figured out how to stop it because it's so expensive to spend an action and a popularity sending a worker back to base and by the time you're riverwalking with speed the spot they really need requires you to walk past a worker to get to the worker you really want to send home. 2 move actions so 3 turns and will cost you 2 popularity
My group still hasn't figured out how to gain popularity efficiently, we've never had more than one player make it to the second bracket, and nobody has ever made it to the third. So punting workers isn't going to hurt anyone's score, other than the "wasted" action(s) to do it.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I think we mostly get it from the monument and encounters. Always take the two for enlisting and depending on your bottom board you may be able to get a bunch through the uncovered bottom action. Is it build that gives the heart? Also mostly stay below six workers.
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WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
edited August 2016
So I took part as a volunteer/host in an office wide board game night. We had Codenames, Machi Koro, Tsuro, Sushi Go, and other quick games ready for teaching to nongamers. It's fun to watch the brains of the players suddenly shift gears as they grok everything. I think we converted more than a few people, since I hear people asking "Where do you buy this?" and "How much is this one?" and "When are you coming here again?" (the one who asked this last time thought that we were a game selling company or something).
That said, I initially volunteered 7 Wonders before I fully understood what I was going into (I thought it was a board game club thing), and the thought of strangers touching my cards unsupervised (And there was food supplied by the office! Chicken!) caused me a mild panic. (edit: and the whole time constraint thing)
WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
Negative components note about Captain Sonar: One of the dry erase markers included with the game went dry at the beginning of the second round. They're small, so I wasn't expecting much of an ink reservoir, but I mean goddamn.
I dropped by Target today and picked up a couple 8-packs of markers in different colors. Can't wait to see what the radio operators get up to when they can draw in two colors at once.
I played Scythe for the first time last week and won with like double the points of the next player as Polania. With the player board I had I was able to go turn 1 Trade for 2 oil and then turn 2 Move and Upgrade to bring the cost of enlisting down to 2 grain which was paired with production. So I got all of my workers out while my character ran around getting tons of free resources from encounters and no one disrupted my engine as I just built all the things.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
edited August 2016
Speaking of "story generation" games, I just got to play Betrayal at House on the Hill for the first time.
As an aside, why isn't it "Betrayal at THE House on the Hill"? Puzzling.
Anyway, I had a bit of a negative bias against it for some reason, and I was playing with strangers, one of whom REALLY didn't like the game, but it ended up being quite satisfactory and suitably epic, winning by skin of teeth etc etc. Nothing like rolling a skill check with 7 dice and getting a total of zero, at the worst possible time. Seems like a fun game to play if you don't take it too seriously.
jergarmar on
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
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tzeentchlingDoctor of RocksOaklandRegistered Userregular
Speaking of "story generation" games, I just got to play Betrayal at House on the Hill for the first time.
As an aside, why isn't it "Betrayal at THE House on the Hill"? Puzzling.
Anyway, I had a bit of a negative bias against it for some reason, and I was playing with strangers, one of whom REALLY didn't like the game, but it ended up being quite satisfactory and suitably epic, winning by skin of teeth etc etc. Nothing like rolling a skill check with 7 dice and getting a total of zero, at the worst possible time. Seems like a fun game to play if you don't take it too seriously.
You absolutely cannot take it seriously. The game is wildly unbalanced, and if the Haunt occurs too early or too late one side will often just get steamrolled.
But I probably have more "Do you remember that time when..." stories from Betrayal than from any other game I've played.
I had Inis on my radar from skimming the preview list on BGG. Then Sam Healey did a review for the Dice Tower and I was convinced that it was a dull and pointless game like many others. For budgetary reasons I am always eager to strike games off my watch list, so Inis seemed like the typical game to drop for me.
But then SUSD had to show up and piss all over my financial plans. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
Posts
I think a more accurate metaphor would be if someone can come into your home and push your board and pieces off the table.
"This is an amiibo-"
"YOU'RE AN AMIIBO!"
It's my strong preference as well. One reason I like Archipelago is because it really tries to merge the different types of game narrative; that is, when you tell a "game story", it actually makes sense to non-gamers, which still having the narrative tightly bound to the game mechanics. It also is an "exploration" game, where you bring out new tiles and expand the game space, but also you don't know when the end of the game is or what gives points, so you need to "explore" how to win the game as you play it. I feel like this is an example of a board game doing things only a board game can do.
My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
Reminds me, I have to bone up on the rules again so I can play it with friends sometime.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Or, at least, for someone to make an app for it that does the management stuff. That'd be sweet.
Slightly less good, still better than regular Legendary imo.
There is a website that makes the paragraph finding process faster and easier.
Quoting Arnold from the Predator movie never gets old so that adds alot to my enjoyment of the game. Bet I would love the Alien version as well but my copy was F'ed with missing cards and I'm to lazy to fix it.
Is it that hard to get them replaced? I thought it was just an email.
Just now discovered that Polania's "Camaraderie" ability only applies when you crush workers in combat. Stomping undefended workers is still penalized. In retrospect this is obvious ("in combat" are literally the first words written on the ability) but easy to overlook.
Not that this would have affected last night's win by Polania (would only have been relevant once and they had enough popularity for it to not matter), but they might not be the 4-0 we've experienced if we had been doing things correctly.
I guess not but I live in sweden and I also had to make a list of all the cards I had in to know whats missing.
I guess they could be difficult about it. They may be cool and just eat the cost of replacing though, like Queen did for me. Cost them 20 euro (? I think it was that, approx $30USD iirc) to ship me the missing board pieces from Germany to the US.
We really won't play with any count but three any more because of the length. It's an amazing experience and always good for laughs, but it's just too long. We also don't like playing with a much lower point total because then everyone's "tales" feel kind of half-baked. The game is great when your character has been around long enough to get turned into an ape and then get a pet hairless ape and then get a sex change (which happened to my wife).
It's also insanely sexist.
Tim Fowers is only a consultant on this (and hooked the designer up with his artist), but it looks every bit as solid as his stuff.
We finally had a Polania win last week. It feels like the strength of that faction depends a ton on which board you get to go with it, and what your first encounter is. If neither one helps you get mechs going in a hurry, it seems like you're in a huge hole.
Also that game, I played the smurfs (blue) for the first time. That faction also feels awful to me - I literally had zero stars placed when the game ended. It was frustrating because it felt like I got off to a decent start and was Doing Things, but I didn't quite manage to get any stars placed. I was at like 5/6 upgrades, 3/4 buildings, 7/8 workers, 3/4 mechs, and was just short of finishing my secret objective (end a turn with $20 in cash).
I've won once with Nordic but it wasn't easy. Last night I was also the viking team and it looked like I was getting out to an early lead but couldn't convert that into actual points.
Like artillery is great but you probably wont be fighting enough for it to matter.
The ability to not need river walk is okay for your workers bu tyou still need a mech for movement efficiency and to get your character off your island.
Edit: wait submerge is Polania, I mixed them up.
Neah Nord Lake < Polania Lake. Like... it's best use is when losing a battle? In some very specific hexes?
Yeah, I'm seriously considering dropping the $250 to get my wife in the game as a villain as a late-Valentine's Day surprise.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
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Nord lake can be brutal if you position your guys right, but yea it's a lot more situational.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Better. And it has a competitive mode that is actually really good unlike normal Legendary.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
holy shit
But the biggest win margins have been on Nord wins from one guy who seems to understand them really well
Somehow he manages to get the resources he needs and produce a lot and then get like 40 points by having tons of territory claimed by workers and buildings and 7+ popularity
we havent quite figured out how to stop it because it's so expensive to spend an action and a popularity sending a worker back to base and by the time you're riverwalking with speed the spot they really need requires you to walk past a worker to get to the worker you really want to send home. 2 move actions so 3 turns and will cost you 2 popularity
That said, I initially volunteered 7 Wonders before I fully understood what I was going into (I thought it was a board game club thing), and the thought of strangers touching my cards unsupervised (And there was food supplied by the office! Chicken!) caused me a mild panic. (edit: and the whole time constraint thing)
I dropped by Target today and picked up a couple 8-packs of markers in different colors. Can't wait to see what the radio operators get up to when they can draw in two colors at once.
edit: also i wonder how it plays with 2... typically card drafting and area control stuff isnt the best with 2... but it looks so good... urrrrrrg
edit edit: well i preordered it, so... cmon November!
As an aside, why isn't it "Betrayal at THE House on the Hill"? Puzzling.
Anyway, I had a bit of a negative bias against it for some reason, and I was playing with strangers, one of whom REALLY didn't like the game, but it ended up being quite satisfactory and suitably epic, winning by skin of teeth etc etc. Nothing like rolling a skill check with 7 dice and getting a total of zero, at the worst possible time. Seems like a fun game to play if you don't take it too seriously.
My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
This is the board game thread in a nutshell.
You absolutely cannot take it seriously. The game is wildly unbalanced, and if the Haunt occurs too early or too late one side will often just get steamrolled.
But I probably have more "Do you remember that time when..." stories from Betrayal than from any other game I've played.
That game is GORGEOUS.
But then SUSD had to show up and piss all over my financial plans. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
Merde.