The Tabletop Game Thread


Mr Mockery

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I had a quick scan to see if a thread like this already existed so apologies if I missed it.

I have gotten quite into table top games. Mainly Thanks to Will Wheaton's Tabletop show on YouTube. Thanks to that show I now own Elder Sign and multiple Fluxx decks and we were given Pandemic for Christmas which I've played before and is a lot of fun.

So does anyone else here enjoy a spot of table top gaming and if so what do you play?

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We do a games night every week at my old housemates and I'm a big fan of a few games right now-

Once Upon a Time- Each person gets dealt out story elements and an ending to work towards, and they have to try to tell that story by laying down their cards whilst other people are trying to interrupt, for instance if you mention a husband or an animal that can talk anyone else with those cards can lay them down and take over the story, and so on. Tremendous fun, especially when you can steal the story from someone when they're down to their last cards. Highly recommended, especially with the expansion packs. It really tests your storytelling skills, even if you're not that confident in that skillset within a few games you'll be spinning yarns with the best of them.

Temple Run- You have ten minutes real time to scout an underground network of rooms, steal the gems and get out, all accompanied by very tense music. The dice can lock, leaving some players immobilised until someone comes to save them, you get curses which mean players can't talk or have to play with one hand on their head. It's adrenaline fuelled action and always good fun.

Resistance and Resistance: Avalon- Pitting player against player you have to figure out who amongst your group is a saboteur by process of elimination, sending people on missions and working out who passed or failed them. It's one of the tensest most revealing games a group can play, and probably the game I've had the most fun with this year. Avalon differs because one of the good guys is deemed Merlin, and they know who the bad guys are. He can steer his fellows towards the right choices but if the bad guys guess who he is they win automatically. It gets more in depth, with loads more special characters and functions to help mix it up. I think it's a must for anyone who can get more than 5 people together regularly.

My tastes tend towards more social games or something with a little extra to them. Whilst I can happily play Settlers of Catan or something like that I prefer to get a little more motivation or leeway in my gaming. Once Upon a Time and Resistance are both must-owns for any collector in my opinion.

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I have played a lot of tabletop games on my life. A lot! Ones that I own and recommend:

Battlestar Galactica: Like Shadows over Camelot and The Resistance, this is a game where 1-2 players are working against the rest and you never know who it's going to be. A fair amount of the game is based in the show but you never have to have seen an episode to have fun with it. The game does take a little while to set up and the first couple of turns can take longer when you're new but the strategy elements and the constant paranoia can make for some fun moments. This is one of those games where the expansions can almost reinvent your entire strategy.

Small World: I have yet to win a game of Small World. I don't care. I always have fun with it. I played it drunk once and I was totally RPing with it. For that matter, drunk board games can be fun. Anyway, you guide a race to get victory points and all races are made up of various combinations like Merchant Skeletons or Dragonmaster Tritons. Everytime you play, you run into new combinations and part of the fun is trying to figure out what combinations will bear the most fruit and when to abandon it for a new one.

Chrononauts: A card game where you are a time-traveler who has ended up in a time line where things are wrong. This just happens to be in my time line and each player has their own card that tells them what events are needed for them to go home. So, you find yourself having to save Lincoln, assassinating Reagen, or any other number of things. You also can win by fixing paradox in time or by fulfilling another card where you collect artifacts for someone including a sports almanac from the future, the crown of thorns, or one of any number of copies of the Mona Lisa around the table.

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A couple of suggestions on Battlestar: 1) Spoony did a video of him playing the game a few years ago. Watch it first. I find that with a lot of board games, especially the slightly more complicated ones, its always helpful to watch someone play it first. 2) The second expansion included the New Caprica endgame. Don't use it. It just enlongates the game without really adding much to it.

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Chrononauts is a lot of fun, if a little random. I'm interested in trying out Battlestar, I've heard good things.

I have yet to play Chrononauhts. I was a little daunted by the instructions but I'm hoping to give it a try soon. I probably wouldn't have bought the games That I own had I not seen them being played first on Tabletop and got a feel for them first.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Another recommendation for a game I'm into and have been for a while

Smash Up- Everyone takes two decks of cards from the box and shuffles them. Your team could be any combination of Pirates, Ninjas, Cthulu, Steampunk, Robots, Wizards, Bear Cavalry, Aliens, Dinosaurs, Plants, Cyborg Apes, Time Travellers etc. There are a number of bases in the middle of the table, and you play one minion and an action per turn. Each minion has a number value, once a base reaches it's combined assigned value it bursts, assigning victory points. Of course it's never that simple, and the mental gymnastic game means that you could use your minions special power, the special conditions of the base and an action that allows you to play more minions or actions or whatever to completely turn the tide of the game in a single turn. A well thought out strategy completely turns everything on it's head and screws everyone else over. It's a brutal game of infighting and tactical synthesis, depending on your alliance your entire deck will have different strengths and abilities. Ghosts play best when you've got a near empty hand, Bear Cavalry specialise in moving your opponent to other bases, Dinosaurs stack for huge bonuses etc. Once you know your deck the possibilities are boundless.

I really enjoy this, you need the expansions for some of the more fun extra teams but it's certainly a option that's never far from my sight on games night.

SmashUp9000-contents.jpg

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Zombies are over-powered as fuck. I love Smash-up but if you have a Zombie-something, you're going to need to hope that all the players work together to stop that one guy. If it's Zombie Wizards, then you're just screwed. That said, with their combination of getting out minions fast, I am intrigued by Zombie Robots.

Other bits from the multiple plays of the game that I've done:

  • Any combo is better with Wizards.
  • Ninjas are kinda cruddy.
  • You don't play as Tricksters to win. You play as Tricksters to have fun fucking with other people.
  • Dinosaurs are alright but I have always had trouble getting them to a win.
  • Magician Robots=Okay, before we play for a half hour, let's just declare you the winner and start a new game,

Note: Haven't gotten The Obligatory Cthulu Expansion yet but it's something I'm planning to. Just, there are other games I want more right now. Thinking of picking up Lords of Waterdeep right now. That all said, when the Science Fiction Double Feature expansion for Smash-up comes out, I am definitely getting it.

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You want overpowered, try playing with the four Cthulu expansion teams, especially when your own decks aren't built to deal with the extra madness cards. I was playing a Cthulu/Bear Cavalry combo in a one on one game this evening and between eating 2-3 madness cards a turn and barely drawing any minions I was stuffed. Official score at the end 15-14 loss for me, but taking into account my 15 madness cards I actually lost 15-7. Brutal.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Won my first game of Small World. Still trying to figure out how the fuck that happened.

Lords of Waterdeep: I fucking love this game. On one hand, yes, it's to some extent your basic European Style worker acquisition game. On the other hand, I don't know if it's the little details they put in or just the setting but there's just something about it all that I just love. I also enjoy the strategy of how you have to plan out using your moves and trying to guess how other player's will react. I had at least one point where I had to guess how someone else would act so it would benefit me in the process.

The expansion is definitely worth getting. First off, you get two expansions for the price of one. The Undermountain basically adds higher scoring cards. Nothing too exciting. The one that really makes it worth it is Skullport which adds some more backstabby things but mostly adds a new mechanic: Corruption. You get awesome stuff fast for taking corruption but at the end of the game, they act as negative points to your score. So, if the long run, you have to juggle how much corruption is alright with how many points you currently have.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

I gotta tell you, if I ever go into a career in Middle-Management or HR, I should so be allowed to use to GMing experience as a skill. I have to juggle 7 people's schedules and do a hell of a lot of conflict resolution in the process.

In unrelated news, at Free Comic Book Day, I purchased a copy of Love Letter which is an oddly fun and quick game where you attempt to send a letter to the Princess of the Land, all in an attempt to marry her. A fair amount of the game is dumb luck but there is a bit of strategy to the whole thing.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

I recently acquired Eldritch Horror. It's a spin-off of Arkham Horror, same premise except, instead of trying to stop the awakening of a Lovecraftian Great Old One in a small town, you're trotting around the world to do it. I highly recommend both games but Eldritch is the less complicated game.

In the game, each player is an investigator, each with their own special abilities. Last game, I was playing Charlie Kane, The Politician. Charlie's abilities pretty much make him the best at buying stuff and letting other people take actions on his turn. So, the entire game was pretty much me staying in California, buying stuff for everyone else and sending them on missions. Of the four players, I the only male character. It wasn't until an hour after game that I realized that we had played Charlie's Angels vs Yog-Sothoth.

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Just come home from a lovely weekend spent at with our regular feedback contributors Peter and Anne-Marie (the Orgs) where they introduced us to Star Trek Attack Wing. It was much more fun than I initially thought it was going to be and we are looking to get our own copy. Having said that the cost of extra ships is crazy high. Over 10 quid for a tiny plastic ship, two cards and a move wheel? bloody hell that's steep.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Idea for the totally sure to kill you Candyland drinking game:

What you Will Need:

  • 1 Candyland Board game
  • 7 Bottles of Alcohol, one for each of the six colors (Red, Purple, Green, Yellow, Blue, and Orange) on the board and 1 High Proof Bottle for the special spots (I'm thinking Jager since the licorice guy is the villain)
  • Shotglasses

How You Play:

  1. When you land on a space, take a shot for that space.
  2. If you get a double card, take a double shot.
  3. When you take a shortcut, take a shot for both the color you started on and the color you ended on.
  4. Anytime you lose a turn, don't take a shot.
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  • 9 months later...

I'm running D&D and I'm making a puzzle that involves me having to make a code wheel. The problem I just realized after an hour of work: Every gaming group I've ever run beats my hard puzzles I put a ton of effort into in 10 seconds but random, easy, crappy, puzzle or riddle I find online? They take an hour on.

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  • 2 years later...

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