Board Games

[LegendarySurgeon]

Do we have any board game enthusiasts here? I've been painting / playing Super Dungeon Explore the last couple of weekends and that combined with Weegee's thread on D&D made me realized that I've moved from being a tabletop gamer to a board gamer for the most part. I still break out the D&D and WH40k sometimes, but for the most part it's games in boxes.

Settlers of Catan
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Twilight Struggle
Agricola
Puerto Rico
Super Dungeon Explore
Munchkin
Dominion
The Awful Green Things from Outer Space

[Phantom]

I love board Gmes

[Nikki Wolf]

Eh, can't say I play any board games anymore. I used to play some of the basics, like Monopoly and Game of Life, as a kid, though. I wouldn't mind playing them again, but eh.

[Wakka]

munchkin is ok
although it's not really a board game

[Smeemo]

Yes! My group loves Catan and Puerto Rico. Haven't tried the others from your list.

Currently, we're obsessed with Arkham Horror. We've now purchased all but a few expansions, and since the game takes up so many fucking square feet, plans are now in the works for a specialized Arkham table.

How is Super Dungeon Explore? I'm still working on painting up my Space Hulk pieces, but it looks interesting.

[LegendarySurgeon]

Yes! My group loves Catan and Puerto Rico. Haven't tried the others from your list.

Currently, we're obsessed with Arkham Horror. We've now purchased all but a few expansions, and since the game takes up so many fucking square feet, plans are now in the works for a specialized Arkham table.

How is Super Dungeon Explore? I'm still working on painting up my Space Hulk pieces, but it looks interesting.

Super Dungeon Explore is a lot of fun, it has a nice mix of tabletop wargame and tabletop rpg packed into a boardgame. My friends and I spent something like 120 man-hours on painting the models, and we're almost done.



How is Arkham horror? I've never actually had a chance to play a game, but I see it every time I go to my local game store, sitting there, nestled up to its many expansions.

[stanley]

i like chess...

[Smeemo]

i like chess...

The ultimate in turn-based strategy!

Arkham Horror is a gamer's game. Lots of numbers, bits, and rules to remember. Once you get the flow of the turn system down, it goes smoothly, but it took us a few 3-4 hour games to get there. It's punishing, too. Most games end with the party getting turned into bloody paste, so much of the fun is derived from witnessing which horrible way we will die this time. I think it's so popular in our group because of its co-op mechanics; every game, the investigators work together to prevent the Ancient One from awakening, or if that fails, try to defeat the big nasty in combat. The "bad" players never get their feelings hurt because they didn't understand the meta until the last turn... that kind of thing. Plus, if you're a Lovecraft fan, you'll get a kick out of all the story references.

[Bagger Vance]

i like chess...

[Argent]

Oh god yes, all of those things. I'm in my college's EuroBoardGames club and we play all of those things, though I haven't heard of The Awful Green Things from Outer Space.

[VoltySquirrel]

Battlestar Galactica Board Game.
/thread

[Necro Wes]

Arkham Horror is a gamer's game. Lots of numbers, bits, and rules to remember. Once you get the flow of the turn system down, it goes smoothly, but it took us a few 3-4 hour games to get there. It's punishing, too. Most games end with the party getting turned into bloody paste, so much of the fun is derived from witnessing which horrible way we will die this time. I think it's so popular in our group because of its co-op mechanics; every game, the investigators work together to prevent the Ancient One from awakening, or if that fails, try to defeat the big nasty in combat. The "bad" players never get their feelings hurt because they didn't understand the meta until the last turn... that kind of thing. Plus, if you're a Lovecraft fan, you'll get a kick out of all the story references.

This sounds awesome. Dose it play similar to D&D?

[Smeemo]

It's kind of comparable to D&D, but really, really limited. There are dozens of investigators to choose from, but there are only 6 stats. The stats are grouped as pairs: Speed/Sneak, Fight/Will, and Lore/Luck. Each pair of stats has a slider that you can move during the upkeep phase, but raising a stat lowers its counterpart (i.e., the faster you are, the worse you are at sneaking, and so on). There are scads of item/spell/skill cards, and enough encounter cards to make each game different than the last.

I enjoy getting into the RP aspect of it, but many don't. For instance, if I'm playing as the Gangster (who starts the game with dynamite and a tommy gun), I might suicidally run into a space with a stack of monsters on it knowing full well meta-game-wise that I'll probably get my shit ruined and be sent to the Hospital/Asylum, depending on whether I get injured or go insane--almost always the latter with the Gangster.

So yeah, it's kind of like D&D, but no, not at all. If you enjoy D&D you'd probably enjoy this game, in my opinion. And noticing your sig, if you're a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos and board games, you should give it a try. I've been reading Lovecraft since I was a wee lad (otherdimensional hipster), so that's likely why I like RPing my investigator from time to time. Oh, the glee I felt when my favorite story, The Colour Out Of Space, got represented by a monster token in one of the expansions.

Edit: Never was a Battlestar Galactica fan, but how's the game, Volty?

[Prof_Schwartz]

I vote for Candyland.

[VoltySquirrel]

Edit: Never was a Battlestar Galactica fan, but how's the game, Volty?

It's fucking fantastic. Essentially, it's a basic cooperative board game. For those not knowledgeable about the show, it's basically about the last remnants of humanity trying to escape the ever encroaching cylons, a group of robots that the humans built that gain sentience. In the show, it's revealed that some cylons can look like humans and have infiltrated the human fleet. In the game, you as a group are trying to find a new home-world, like in the show. However, someone in the group is also a cylon who is supposed to covertly work against the humans without being found. That simple twist turns an otherwise standard formulaic game into one of the most entertaining and tense games of finger pointing ever. As a base game, it's a tad flawed, since the cylons are very overpowered in it, but a pair of expansion packs rectify that. If you want to see how it's played, watch this: http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/06/05/battlestar-galactica-the-boardgame/

[LegendarySurgeon]

I vote for Candyland.

Candyland is more quickly simulated by rolling dice exactly one time, the highest roller being the winner. Or spinning a spinner if that's what you're into.

I've played half of one game of Arkham Horror and I just remember being some kind of hobo with a dog, hiding for dear life (speed at 0, stealth max) from a giant pile of like 6 monsters all standing where I was.

[Spyder]

Dungeon Dice Monsters.

[Smeemo]

I've played half of one game of Arkham Horror and I just remember being some kind of hobo with a dog, hiding for dear life (speed at 0, stealth max) from a giant pile of like 6 monsters all standing where I was.

Hahaha, yeah, it can get pretty ugly. Most games you'll just die a few horrible deaths in a playthrough, but I did witness one poor bastard (who of course wasn't a regular player in the group), get sent to the Hospital on his first turn and was never able to leave, except to move one space, get mauled, and go back to the hospital. It was painful to watch.... hilariously painful.

That was before the injury/madness mechanic was introduced, which allows an investigator who's reduced to 0 stamina or sanity to take an injury or madness card, which represents a permanent malady of the physical or mental variety. If a player draws two of the same injury/madness cards (ex. two Xenophobia cards) in a game, that investigator is devoured, and the player must start over with a new investigator. Among other benefits to the game (imo), it's a nice thematic way of preventing anti-fun scenarios like the one Surgeon and I mentioned.

However, someone in the group is also a cylon who is supposed to covertly work against the humans without being found.

Having a traitorous dog in the group trying to evade detection sounds really interesting. I'll see if the local game store has a demo copy.

[Amplify]

I bought Betrayal at House on the Hill a couple days ago and I have to say I'm in no way disappointed by my purchase.

[VoltySquirrel]

Although this is a board game per se, but I just recently got into D&D and RPGs in general, and recently I've joined a game using the Star Wars Saga Edition rulebook and found it to be very noob friendly, so I guess there is that.