Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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Marbleman
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Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

Post by Marbleman »

If you haven't heard, there is something of a board game renaissance happening these days, growing in community size and diversity. I've been a tabletop rpg gamer for some time and I've done just about everything (D&D, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, GURPs, etc.) and run several campaigns as a DM myself. However, in the last year I've started to get more interested in board games as well. So I'm creating this topic in case anyone else wants to talk about board games, card games, tabletop rpgs, conventions, community, etc. Post here about a game (or game system) you recommend, or do NOT recommend. Or just to chat about anything related to the topic.

So to start off, I'd like to recommend a game I think almost everyone will enjoy: Bang! The Dice Game. I have played this spaghetti western themed shoot out game with non-gamers, hardened gamers, and everyone in between - and it always goes over well with any party. If you want an action party game that is easy to teach, quick, but with enough variety to keep more advanced gamers engaged, you should pick it up.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143 ... -dice-game
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Kapit
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

Post by Kapit »

So many good games, so little time to play them all!

Outside of the basics (CAH, Catan, Ticket to Ride, etc) I really love the X-Wing miniatures game from Fantasy Flight. I don't have a lot of ships but I love the gameplay and cannot get enough of it.

Betrayal at the House on the Hill is also a great one. I received Codenames at Christmas but have yet to play it.
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Marbleman
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

Post by Marbleman »

Kapit - I just played Betrayal the other weekend at a friend's birthday. His girlfriend was the betrayer and her dragon deep fried my character in an elevator. The chaos of that game is too much fun, even if they could have been more clear in the directions in some cases. (I do want to get the expansion soon!)

That is my problem too, in terms of having so many games I'd like to try, but little time with work and grad school. I do want to check out the X-wing miniatures game, and it's on my ever expanding list.

Codenames is good, and I picked up Codenames Pictures recently (though haven't had a chance to play). I got a good game from the same designer (Vlaada Chvátil) recently called Tash-Kalar. It's an abstract-y game with a great theme of summoning monsters to destroy your opponents pieces, although it doesn't work in party settings like Codenames does.

My personal favorite games I've encountered thus far have been The Resistance (a deduction spy game that is better than One Night Werewolf IMO), and Onitama (a kung fu themed abstract game).
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Jjm3233
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

Post by Jjm3233 »

I have a group of friends who play board games pretty regularly. Lately, we've played Carcassone,Dominion, X-Wing,Star Wars: Armada, and Game of Thrones: Hand of the King.
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Marbleman
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

Post by Marbleman »

Jjm3233 wrote: March 31st, 2017, 5:01 pm I have a group of friends who play board games pretty regularly. Lately, we've played Carcassone,Dominion, X-Wing,Star Wars: Armada, and Game of Thrones: Hand of the King.
Love Carcassone! And they have an app of it that doesn't suck.

I've heard good things about GoT: Hand of the King. The artwork they used for it has been around awhile before the games' release right?
Torog
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

Post by Torog »

I'm looking into Bang! -- that looks pretty awesome. I would recommend two games:

1. Werewolves of Miller's Hollow - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/258 ... ers-hollow

Trying to describe the game is ... challenging. But once you're playing it through once or twice then it all clicks. Essentially, you pit a well-informed minority against an uninformed majority. It works bests with a minimum of 7 players and gets really great with larger groups of 11 or more.

2. Exploding Kittens - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/172 ... ng-kittens

This is a card game that duplicates Russian Roulette with the addition of using cards in your hand to force the other players to take extra pulls on the trigger (draws from the deck). You have DEFUSE cards in your hand, hopefully, so that when you draw an 'Exploding Kitten' card you will survive the draw. Then you get to put the Exploding card back into the deck at a location of your choice. You can also steal cards from other players, etc. And all the art is done by some very famous webcomic guy -- they're hysterical to look at.

I haven't played tabletop RPG's since I was in college (back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth -- pterodactyl screech) but I do play on MUDS which are like text-based versions of RPGs. I currently am a staff member on a mud named 'Waterdeep' which you can play online using a webclient here: https://client.waterdeep.info/ -- but you should really try using a mud 'client' like mushclient: http://www.gammon.com.au/mushclient/mushclient.htm

Bear in mind -- the MUDs are more like larger, multi-player versions of Zork, with better combat. They're not for everyone, but there's a lot of them still kicking. And they come in a lot of various themes as well: including Space Operas which means, you guessed it -- Star Wars themed muds!

And the vast majority of them are free to play, and can even be played on your phone.

You might like: https://www.legendsofthejedi.com/

Sincerely, Torog
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Jjm3233
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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Marbleman wrote: April 3rd, 2017, 10:54 pm
Jjm3233 wrote: March 31st, 2017, 5:01 pm I have a group of friends who play board games pretty regularly. Lately, we've played Carcassone,Dominion, X-Wing,Star Wars: Armada, and Game of Thrones: Hand of the King.
Love Carcassone! And they have an app of it that doesn't suck.

I've heard good things about GoT: Hand of the King. The artwork they used for it has been around awhile before the games' release right?
Yes MM I believe it has. Its a fun, quick card game. Everyone I have played it with was up for multiple hands.
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Marbleman
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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Torog wrote: April 5th, 2017, 10:14 am I'm looking into Bang! -- that looks pretty awesome. I would recommend two games:

1. Werewolves of Miller's Hollow - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/258 ... ers-hollow

Trying to describe the game is ... challenging. But once you're playing it through once or twice then it all clicks. Essentially, you pit a well-informed minority against an uninformed majority. It works bests with a minimum of 7 players and gets really great with larger groups of 11 or more.

2. Exploding Kittens - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/172 ... ng-kittens

This is a card game that duplicates Russian Roulette with the addition of using cards in your hand to force the other players to take extra pulls on the trigger (draws from the deck). You have DEFUSE cards in your hand, hopefully, so that when you draw an 'Exploding Kitten' card you will survive the draw. Then you get to put the Exploding card back into the deck at a location of your choice. You can also steal cards from other players, etc. And all the art is done by some very famous webcomic guy -- they're hysterical to look at.
Cool, Torog, there is the original Bang! and then Bang! the Dice Game. The former has more components and longer playtime, the latter is more streamlined and more fun (IMHO). There's a Walking Dead version of Bang! the Dice Game too, but haven't picked it up (never really got into that series).

I do have Werewolves of Miller's of Miller's Hollow: The Pact (which has the expansions included) but haven't played it yet. I got on a bit of a board game buying spree awhile back and am in "backlog" mode to actually play them all. :oops: The rulebook shows a ton of roles, especially compared to games like One Night Werewolf. I have seen Exploding Kittens played and it looked pretty fun. By the artist that does The Oatmeal, I think.

I'll check out those MUDs links. Some of that looks somewhat familiar to me, hm.

Has anyone checked out Tabletopia? I'm hoping this endeavor will pan out - it is attempting to be the Netflix of board games. I subbed for the free account to try it out. They have alot of Stonemaier games, like Scythe.

https://tabletopia.com
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Marbleman
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

Post by Marbleman »

Jjm3233 wrote: April 5th, 2017, 8:20 pm
Marbleman wrote: April 3rd, 2017, 10:54 pm
Jjm3233 wrote: March 31st, 2017, 5:01 pm I have a group of friends who play board games pretty regularly. Lately, we've played Carcassone,Dominion, X-Wing,Star Wars: Armada, and Game of Thrones: Hand of the King.
Love Carcassone! And they have an app of it that doesn't suck.

I've heard good things about GoT: Hand of the King. The artwork they used for it has been around awhile before the games' release right?
Yes MM I believe it has. Its a fun, quick card game. Everyone I have played it with was up for multiple hands.
I've been looking for some more quick "filler" games between "main course" games, Jjm. I'll have to check it out. Love Letter and Coup are a few other quick card games that are effective in that role.
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Jjm3233
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

Post by Jjm3233 »

Marbleman wrote: April 7th, 2017, 5:59 pm
Jjm3233 wrote: April 5th, 2017, 8:20 pm
Marbleman wrote: April 3rd, 2017, 10:54 pm

Love Carcassone! And they have an app of it that doesn't suck.

I've heard good things about GoT: Hand of the King. The artwork they used for it has been around awhile before the games' release right?
Yes MM I believe it has. Its a fun, quick card game. Everyone I have played it with was up for multiple hands.
I've been looking for some more quick "filler" games between "main course" games, Jjm. I'll have to check it out. Love Letter and Coup are a few other quick card games that are effective in that role.
I like those too, also Fluxx (The most fun 5 minute "filler" game, the most excruciating 15 minute one)
Torog
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

Post by Torog »

Marbleman wrote: April 7th, 2017, 5:51 pm
Has anyone checked out Tabletopia? I'm hoping this endeavor will pan out - it is attempting to be the Netflix of board games. I subbed for the free account to try it out. They have alot of Stonemaier games, like Scythe.
Checking it out now -- looks interesting!
RE: tabletop gaming -- have you ever looked at roll20? https://roll20.net/ -- basically, you can run a traditional tabletop rpg online. TBH, I've never used it.

Lately my family and I have been playing (don't laugh) Texas No Holdem Poker! You can get a very decent set of poker chips for like 30 bucks at Costco, and you can play for money. So we will give every player a set number of chips for some token amount of money -- $5. But if 8 people play at a family gathering, the winner gets $30, and second place gets $10. Or whatever you want your "buy-in" to be. Some people even go so far as to have custom chips made up. I know it might seem tawdry to suggest putting money at stake (I'm a tawdry sort of guy) -- but sometimes putting even a very small amount of money into play makes the game more exciting. To wit: I would also recommend 'Left, Right, Center' if you've never played. This game can be gotten in convenience stores for almost nothing, it's just three special dice: https://www.amazon.com/LCR-Center-Right ... B000F9YDKY

In order to play, everyone sits at a table and puts three dollar bills in front of them. Play goes around the tables, with each person rolling a die for each dollar they still have. Each die has three dots ("safe") and an "L", "R" and "C" ("left", "right" and "center"). If you roll a "dot" then you can keep that dollar. If you roll "C" then you put the dollar into the center of the table. "L" means you shift your dollar to the person on your left, same for "right".

Over time, the dollars slowly pile up in the center of the table. The last person who has a dollar in front of them wins all the money.

This is a good game even for kids because if you lose all your dollars, the remaining dollars do tend to shift left and right, and a person could easily find themselves back in the game. And no one's so hard up that they don't have three dollars. Also, the learning curve is non-existent for groups of, eh, older adults who don't have any interest in 'learning' how to play something.
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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I've been playing X-Wing when I can find the time and holy crap is the TIE Phantom with "Echo" one of the most exciting things to fly. That ships movement is absolutely bonkers
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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I've done a set of missions as the Empire (playing with friends) in Imperial Assault.
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Kapit
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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Jjm3233 wrote: July 19th, 2017, 7:46 pm I've done a set of missions as the Empire (playing with friends) in Imperial Assault.
I keep eyeing that game but the price tag makes it hard to take the leap. Is it worth the cost?
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Jjm3233
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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Kapit wrote: July 20th, 2017, 9:42 am
Jjm3233 wrote: July 19th, 2017, 7:46 pm I've done a set of missions as the Empire (playing with friends) in Imperial Assault.
I keep eyeing that game but the price tag makes it hard to take the leap. Is it worth the cost?
I just moved, and a friend one was the one who owned it. I am intending to buy it for myself around Christmas...So, yes. :yoda:
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Marbleman
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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Just updating this thread to plug a few games I've played over the year that have stuck out to me for their fun and intense replayabilty:

6 nimmt! - One of the best simple card games for a group, in which all players are bulls trying to avoid getting branded by any card points. So many times I've narrowly avoided getting "burned" by avoiding placing the 6th card in a row.

Takenoko - Cuddly and thematic enough for newcomers, complex enough to draw in hardcore gamers. Takenoko is a superb gateway game as well, which has come up as one of the most requested to bring to our table. Who knew managing pandas and bamboo gardens would be so much fun!

Also, here is my BGG collection thus far, as well as my other reviews and ratings. My username on BGG is Soothscribe if you want to link up with me.

https://boardgamegeek.com/collection/us ... dgame&ff=1
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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Currently into 40k (for 20 odd years); Shadow War: Armageddon; Necromunda; X-Wing.
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Jjm3233
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Re: Board Game and Tabletop Discussion

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Lately its been the Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game around my house.
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