Dope ass board games

[gibson]

Time to revive this thread. Just played Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion yesterday for the first time. I love it. I want to play more. I finally know why Gloomhaven is the #1 rated boardgame of all time on Boardgamegeek.

Not saying that the game is bad, but that list is terrible

Why?

because it’s obviously weighted very heavily towards 1 specific style of game

[Goodspeed]

The best style of game, correct.

[edeholland]

Show hidden quotes

Time to revive this thread. Just played Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion yesterday for the first time. I love it. I want to play more. I finally know why Gloomhaven is the #1 rated boardgame of all time on Boardgamegeek.

Not saying that the game is bad, but that list is terrible

Why?

because it’s obviously weighted very heavily towards 1 specific style of game

How does that make the list bad?

[edeholland]

I can heavily recommend Boardgamegeek when trying to find a new boardgame to play, any style.

[Goodspeed]

One of the great things about boardgamegeek is that they appropriately rate popular bad games like monopoly https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1406/monopoly
... and Risk https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/181/risk

[chris1089]

1941? @j_t_kirk
Your post is confusing, I assume you made a typo with one of the dates?

No, I meant 1914. It is the WWI version.

You mean the hours you spent in the 1940 version were bad?

[j_t_kirk]

1941? @j_t_kirk
Your post is confusing, I assume you made a typo with one of the dates?

No, I meant 1914. It is the WWI version.

You mean the hours you spent in the 1940 version were bad?

No, the 1940 version is my favourite.
I meant that you shouldn't play the 1940 version, because it is the largest A&A game. It takes way longer than the 1941 version and you didn't like it, because it took you more than 3 hours.

[chris1089]

I understand now. Thanks :)

[fedjahnson]

im a big fan of monopole myself. I relate very strongly to the titular "monopoly man'

@fedjahnson Thanks for reminding me of this, it's a great post

I was in a zoom meeting while I was scrolling through here and lost it laughing over that post. High quality

[fedjahnson]

I should mention that some of my favorite games are boggle and scrabble, I got to my grandparent house at least once a month and they always win scrabble by a landslide. I don't know how but nonetheless a good time

[gibson]

Show hidden quotes

Time to revive this thread. Just played Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion yesterday for the first time. I love it. I want to play more. I finally know why Gloomhaven is the #1 rated boardgame of all time on Boardgamegeek.

Not saying that the game is bad, but that list is terrible

Why?

because it’s obviously weighted very heavily towards 1 specific style of game

How does that make the list bad?

Because its based off of some standard which isn't people enjoyment. As mentioned above it rates risk and monopoly terribly, which are games that a lot of people enjoy a lot. Just because they're unfair, imbalanced, and simple doesn't make them bad. To me the standard of a game being "good" or not is if people enjoy it.

[deleted_user]

idk why the PNW is making board game bars a thing but my very PNW young professional friend who isn't even a big board game fan took me to one of these a lot and ngl we never got a board game we liked because we didn't know any and the state of inebriation is a poor state to learn new, complicated mechanics and so long story short idk why we paid $10 a drink to play chess between the three of us. I really hated going there except I liked being around people.

[fightinfrenchman]

except I liked being around people.

Can't wait for June

[edeholland]

Show hidden quotes

Time to revive this thread. Just played Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion yesterday for the first time. I love it. I want to play more. I finally know why Gloomhaven is the #1 rated boardgame of all time on Boardgamegeek.

Not saying that the game is bad, but that list is terrible

Why?

because it’s obviously weighted very heavily towards 1 specific style of game

How does that make the list bad?

Because its based off of some standard which isn't people enjoyment. As mentioned above it rates risk and monopoly terribly, which are games that a lot of people enjoy a lot. Just because they're unfair, imbalanced, and simple doesn't make them bad. To me the standard of a game being "good" or not is if people enjoy it.

It just so happens that the people voting on Boardgamegeek enjoy fair and balanced games more than games that are unfair and imbalanced. That doesn't mean the list doesn't reflect their enjoyment, it just means the average joe, who likes Monopoly, doesn't vote there.

So yes, the list reflects what above-casual players think are enjoyable games, which makes it a really good list for me.

[edeholland]

because it’s obviously weighted very heavily towards 1 specific style of game

I also don't understand the specific style argument. In the top 100 alone, it ranges from simple tile laying games like Azul to more complex engine builders like Terraforming Mars and from simple co-op games like Pandemic to giant space operas like Twilight Imperium.

The top 100 alone has games for any type of player.

[Goodspeed]

Show hidden quotes

Time to revive this thread. Just played Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion yesterday for the first time. I love it. I want to play more. I finally know why Gloomhaven is the #1 rated boardgame of all time on Boardgamegeek.

Not saying that the game is bad, but that list is terrible

Why?

because it’s obviously weighted very heavily towards 1 specific style of game

How does that make the list bad?

Because its based off of some standard which isn't people enjoyment. As mentioned above it rates risk and monopoly terribly, which are games that a lot of people enjoy a lot. Just because they're unfair, imbalanced, and simple doesn't make them bad. To me the standard of a game being "good" or not is if people enjoy it.

The fact that monopoly and risk are popular doesn't mean they are good games, though. Actually both of them have game-breaking design flaws that modern game developers learned to avoid. The most important one imo is player elimination, which simply shouldn't exist in tabletop games.

The mainstream audience and critics often disagree with each other, not just in the context of games. Example: The Wire (TV show). This is because the mainstream audience by definition does not engage with anything in-depth. If you get into a hobby, any hobby, as BGG users do, your opinions will invariably start to deviate from the mainstream. And they are also much more likely to be a correct estimation of quality.

I wouldn't say these games are necessarily objectively bad, but I'd say board gamers are a better group to ask about board games than people who have no connection to the hobby except for the 50 year old copy of Monopoly stored somewhere in their house that got passed down to them by their parents. These people often simply don't know any better. When trying to get as close as possible to an objective estimation of quality about a certain TV show, would you value the opinion of someone who has only ever watched that, and nothing else? Because that is commonly the extent of exposure people get to board gaming. Monopoly enjoys an enormous head start as one of the classics, but it simply doesn't hold up.

Consider how easily swayed the general population is by good marketing. I would argue that not quality but marketing is the primary factor in deciding how popular something is going to be. And this makes sense, because the general population has little more to go by than word of mouth and the "feeling" they get when they think of a certain product, which is largely shaped by marketing. The point: Popularity may suggest, but certainly doesn't prove quality.

Monopoly in particular does extremely poorly at being a fun family experience. It's not a positive game. You either win, the lesson being that money buys happiness, or you slowly but surely lose all of your money and have to sell all of your properties one by one. And then you have to sit out the rest of the game, which can take a while even if someone is already clearly winning. And it's not like you could have done anything about it, since the game is nearly all luck-based.
Compare it to a game like Agricola where your decisions make a difference, you get to build a nice little farm and the game ends at the same time for everyone. Night and day.

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/04/monop ... lay-again/

[chris1089]

To my shame I played a whole 2 goes of monopoly before I remembered how bad it was (and walked out) when my flatmates played it a month ago.
Sadly I haven't had the chance to organise a second game of ticket to ride, even though all 4 of them enjoyed it.

[Horsemen]

just play avalon normies love that game

[edeholland]

just play avalon normies love that game

When it comes to social deduction games, I would rank it like Secret Hitler > Avalon > Werewolves.

One of the reasons I dislike Werewolves nowadays is the player elimination. It can happen in SH too, but that usually means you sit idly for 15-30 minutes instead of 1-2 hours.

Avalon has a great app which means you don't have to play with actual cards if you don't have them with you, btw. SH has an active website for playing online.

[RefluxSemantic]

Sorry to revive this thread but I love board games and like talking about them. I only play them co-op or 1v1 though so dont really have a strong opinion on other game modes. Some of my favorites include:

- Spirit island, a wonderful co-op game. The theme is great and it feels like it solves most quarterback problems that co-op games face (one player telling the rest what to do). It has a ton of depth and a lot of replayability (you can play as different spirits and theres a bunch of scenarios with different difficulty levels. The biggest downside of the game is the risk of analysis paralysis. This is the most complex game I've played and the sheer amount of options you have is quite overwhelming sometimes (and then you also kinda have to consider the options of the other players and cooperate).

- Paleo, also a co-op game. I feel like this game stands out through the story it tells. It feels like you really are your group of cavemen trying to survive the harshness of the ice age. While I appreciate depth, I've learned that theme is extremely engaging and paleo really stands out. Biggest downside is that the manual is bad and that replayability is somewhat lacking. I feel like you can get a good 10 hours of fun out of it and not much more.

- Terraforming mars. This is probably my favorite eurogame (for the uninitiated, a euro game is about managing economy and moving cubes around). The slight theme is nice because I like science, but otherwise I appreciate the sheer depth and strategy. One downside is that the game can be very demanding because of how much depth there really is.

- 7 wonders duel. Edeholland recommended this game to me. Many games dont have a direct conflict and have you engage with others only indirectly if even that. 7wonder duel has a very unique system that creates a lot of interaction between the two players. In many games you just sort of try to figure out the optimal line and thats that, but in 7 wonders duels your decisions will almost entirely depend on what the other person is doing.

- Root. Unlike other games I've listed, this game has more direct conflict. I really like its theme (those forest critters are excruciatingly cute) and it has a decent amount of depth. I think the unique classes (forest tribes basically) are implemented particularly well. Only downside is that its suboptimal for 2 players (most match ups are terribly imbalanced) but I've bought the clockwork expansion which should solve these problems (havent had the time to try it yet).

- In terms of deck building games, I own both dominion and the quest for el dorado. Dominion is probably the game with more strategy and depth but I actually prefer el dorado. The theme of that game is really good and the way the effects of deck building are represented (as you making your way through forests, villages and over ricers) makes it more satisfying to play. Its also pretty light so its the one game I own that I'm comfortable teaching to inexperienced board gamers.

[Goodspeed]

Bumping threads gets a bad rap but it's actually a great thing to do.
I've been wanting to play spirit island but then COVID. Wasn't a huge fan of terraforming mars. Dominion is great. Haven't played the others.

Have you noticed how, in Dominion, there's usually a pretty big difference in opening strength between 4-3 hands and 5-2 hands? (by which I mean getting either 5 coin and 2 coin in the first 2 hands or 4 and 3). Being able to afford that 5-cost can be very impactful and is purely based on opening shuffle RNG.

I highly recommend our house rule, in case you're interested in limiting the RNG factor and adding a fun opening dynamic:
We don't shuffle the deck initially. After the kingdom cards are chosen, we all write down a number of bonus points that we would be happy to play 4/3 with (can be a negative number). Then we take the average of all the numbers written and that becomes the cutoff point: everyone above it plays 5/2, and everyone below it plays 4/3 with the number of bonus points from the average.

[princeofcarthage]

Civ 6

[Vinyanyérë]

Bumping threads gets a bad rap but it's actually a great thing to do.
I've been wanting to play spirit island but then COVID. Wasn't a huge fan of terraforming mars. Dominion is great. Haven't played the others.

Have you noticed how, in Dominion, there's usually a pretty big difference in opening strength between 4-3 hands and 5-2 hands? (by which I mean getting either 5 coin and 2 coin in the first 2 hands or 4 and 3). Being able to afford that 5-cost can be very impactful and is purely based on opening shuffle RNG.

I highly recommend our house rule, in case you're interested in limiting the RNG factor and adding a fun opening dynamic:
We don't shuffle the deck initially. After the kingdom cards are chosen, we all write down a number of bonus points that we would be happy to play 4/3 with (can be a negative number). Then we take the average of all the numbers written and that becomes the cutoff point: everyone above it plays 5/2, and everyone below it plays 4/3 with the number of bonus points from the average.

Have you played with the house rule that you get to order your starting deck as you please?

[Goodspeed]

Our rule is just a strictly better version of that, because deck variety is ensured and it creates a meaningful opportunity to outplay in the early game. If everyone gets to just order it however they please with no penalty, everyone will probably order it the same way.
Like if there's a great 5-cost everyone will go 5-2, whereas with our rule only the people who are willing to pay the most (read: more than the average) amount of points for the privilege get to play 5-2.

[Goodspeed]

Civ 6

A lot of potential but there are game-breaking problems in civ 6 tbh, mostly balance-related. Planes are too strong, nukes are too strong, map spawns are often bad, the victory conditions aren't well-balanced etc.