Like Choose Your Own Adventure, but with miniatures
April 22, 2018 7:01 PM Subscribe
In BoardGameGeek's 18 years of existence, cataloging and judging board games from all over the world, only seven games have occupied the #1 overall position. The newest is Cephalofair Games' Gloomhaven, a super-ambitious legacy game that plays like Dungeons and Dragons using cards instead of dice. It weighs more than 20 pounds, costs around $200, and comes with more than 100 branching adventures for the players to hack and slash their way through. Reaching BGG's #1 position is particularly amazing for a game that isn't actually on the market yet (not counting the the two Kickstarter campaigns). FiveThirtyEight's senior board games correspondent Oliver Roeder takes a look at why it may be hard for any game to break Gloomhaven's hold on the top spot.
The $200 price point is artificial. It'll settle for much lower. Gloomhaven in 2018 is what Scythe was in 2016-2017. You can pick up Scythe for $55, now; the supply has caught up to demand.
Gloomhaven is absolutely massive, and likely will retail for $120, but "costs $200" is based on resales by people who are selling their Kickstarter copies.
posted by explosion at 7:56 PM on April 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Gloomhaven is absolutely massive, and likely will retail for $120, but "costs $200" is based on resales by people who are selling their Kickstarter copies.
posted by explosion at 7:56 PM on April 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
We've started playing this and I've been wondering if any other Mefites are too!
It's fun! It's not something to pick up casually (expensive, giant box with a million pieces, tons of rules, tons of fiddly stuff to track during a game) but it's totally interesting and I'm still trying to figure out strategy.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:57 PM on April 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's fun! It's not something to pick up casually (expensive, giant box with a million pieces, tons of rules, tons of fiddly stuff to track during a game) but it's totally interesting and I'm still trying to figure out strategy.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:57 PM on April 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Kickstarter, cult of the new, and legacy...
All the worst of the current state of boardgaming.
Also, get off my lawn...
posted by Windopaene at 8:01 PM on April 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
All the worst of the current state of boardgaming.
Also, get off my lawn...
posted by Windopaene at 8:01 PM on April 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
Gloomhaven is a lot of fun, but you have to commit to it.
This isn't a twice a year game, this is a deep world you sorta need to hit up frequently to have fun in it. However, it's depth can be a millstone. If I were still gaming five nights a week, I think I'd enjoy it more than the few times a month my group can get together. We've had a shitton of fun with it, but after three or four adventures, my dude is still at level 1 and kinda sucks and I find myself wanting to play Mansions of Madness again.
You did forget the best part though, the box weighs like twenty five pounds.
posted by Sphinx at 8:07 PM on April 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
This isn't a twice a year game, this is a deep world you sorta need to hit up frequently to have fun in it. However, it's depth can be a millstone. If I were still gaming five nights a week, I think I'd enjoy it more than the few times a month my group can get together. We've had a shitton of fun with it, but after three or four adventures, my dude is still at level 1 and kinda sucks and I find myself wanting to play Mansions of Madness again.
You did forget the best part though, the box weighs like twenty five pounds.
posted by Sphinx at 8:07 PM on April 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
As someone who's played plenty of tabletop RPGs, but only a limited amount of board games and strategy games, and prefers board games, I guess this sounds good, but I'm unclear on why you'd want to shoehorn something that so obviously seems like it wants to be a typical RPG, into board game mechanics.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:20 PM on April 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:20 PM on April 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm unclear on why you'd want to shoehorn something that so obviously seems like it wants to be a typical RPG, into board game mechanics.
Removing the Dungeon Master and instead having all players playing on the same side with the same goal, and not requiring one individual to do significantly more preparation for a gaming session than everyone else seems like the main reason to make it into a board game as opposed to a traditional PnP RPG.
posted by I paid money to offer this... insight? at 8:41 PM on April 22, 2018 [20 favorites]
Removing the Dungeon Master and instead having all players playing on the same side with the same goal, and not requiring one individual to do significantly more preparation for a gaming session than everyone else seems like the main reason to make it into a board game as opposed to a traditional PnP RPG.
posted by I paid money to offer this... insight? at 8:41 PM on April 22, 2018 [20 favorites]
This intrigued me greatly when it first popped up, but I have found my boardgaming tastes these days leaning towards more streamlined, less-componenty games. Ideally, pure card games, like Aeon's End or the Arkham Horror LCG (which, to be frank, I am considering dumping, as the LCG model is just too exhausting to keep up with, but that's just me being old).
I've cleared out a lot of stuff from my boardgame collection of late, and the most complicated I have left is probably something like Relic or Fallout (which, like a true boardgamer, I purchased on release day and still haven't touched).
Gloomhaven is getting a lot of good press of course, but BGG still bangs on about Mage Knight too, which is an awful, clunky, abstruse game with a horrid manual and foggy rules, and is totally unfun even as a solo experience (really, the only way to play). Plus they both take, like, twenty minutes to set up. But they are of course niche games for very specific audiences, and it's good that something has been delivered can be so appreciated.
But really, my chief whinge about boardgames is: too much plastic. Everything that fan favourite publisher CMON releases has about thirty chunky plastic minis in it, with tens of expansions for dozens more. They are an ecological nightmare.
Boo and also hurrah for boardgames, ultimately.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:46 PM on April 22, 2018
I've cleared out a lot of stuff from my boardgame collection of late, and the most complicated I have left is probably something like Relic or Fallout (which, like a true boardgamer, I purchased on release day and still haven't touched).
Gloomhaven is getting a lot of good press of course, but BGG still bangs on about Mage Knight too, which is an awful, clunky, abstruse game with a horrid manual and foggy rules, and is totally unfun even as a solo experience (really, the only way to play). Plus they both take, like, twenty minutes to set up. But they are of course niche games for very specific audiences, and it's good that something has been delivered can be so appreciated.
But really, my chief whinge about boardgames is: too much plastic. Everything that fan favourite publisher CMON releases has about thirty chunky plastic minis in it, with tens of expansions for dozens more. They are an ecological nightmare.
Boo and also hurrah for boardgames, ultimately.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:46 PM on April 22, 2018
The genius of Gloomhaven (the box is very clearly an artifact of being a Kickstarter project that blew past its stretch goals, in that the game could easily have shipped with about half its pieces) is that, at its core, it's not really that much more fiddly than most boardgames. Unlike a lot of dungeon crawler games, the moment-to-moment gameplay (play two cards from your hand, both of which you lose until your next hand refresh) has got some fun tension to it without needing to roll some dice to see whether or not you get to do the thing. It's got some simple rules so players play imperfectly and get a little selfish without necessarily working at cross-purposes. The vast majority of the pieces stay in the box.
Setup and tear down is a real pain, and I'm hoping they think very carefully about that for the retail release.
posted by Merus at 8:50 PM on April 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Setup and tear down is a real pain, and I'm hoping they think very carefully about that for the retail release.
posted by Merus at 8:50 PM on April 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
How long are your sessions lasting with it? Ours have been pretty darn long, in a way I imagine would limit its appeal to the general market.... but we're only getting started - does it get a lot faster?
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:09 PM on April 22, 2018
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:09 PM on April 22, 2018
We play weekly 6.30 -> 9.30 or so. Things speed up once you start to learn your cards, and there are also a bunch of other timesavers like using small dice on the map for monster HP.
If we're missing a person we can get through two maps a night, or if we fail a mission we sometimes retry it one difficulty level down on speed mode the same night. (we're playing on hard by default)
posted by xiw at 9:15 PM on April 22, 2018
If we're missing a person we can get through two maps a night, or if we fail a mission we sometimes retry it one difficulty level down on speed mode the same night. (we're playing on hard by default)
posted by xiw at 9:15 PM on April 22, 2018
The point about streamlining it for regular retail is super interesting to me. Part of the fun of the current version is the silly overkill of all the million pieces etc, but it's also a drawback and a reason I wouldn't just buy this for every family I know for Christmas. Streamlined version could be the answer -- I can see it working really well as a base game plus expansions. Buy a pack of Gloomhaven Basic for $50 for your week at the cabin, and get the Mountain Troll expansion to go with it this time - imagining the expansion comes with 5 new scenarios, a few new terrain pieces and monsters, plus a mystery treasure item or unlockable class or whatever - and you can add stuff this way ala carte forever.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:19 PM on April 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:19 PM on April 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't really see why 538 thinks that it'll be so hard to move it down the list. It doesn't need another game to get higher rankings. All that has to happen is for the general public to start playing the game and reviewing it without any vested interest in defending the fact that they spent $200 on a board game on Kickstarter. When the price comes down and just more copies get out there and played by people who're less heavily invested in it, the ratings average will come down.
It's actually a little worrisome that people think so much of this ranking when it's based on a rating that clearly can be gamed like this, by restricting supply to people who are people most likely to give it perfect scores. But unless they keep that up, it seems unlikely to stay there forever. I guess the only way it sticks is if a wider audience never even tries it--at which point, is it really that meaningful to be #1?
posted by Sequence at 10:50 PM on April 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
It's actually a little worrisome that people think so much of this ranking when it's based on a rating that clearly can be gamed like this, by restricting supply to people who are people most likely to give it perfect scores. But unless they keep that up, it seems unlikely to stay there forever. I guess the only way it sticks is if a wider audience never even tries it--at which point, is it really that meaningful to be #1?
posted by Sequence at 10:50 PM on April 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
My group plays about four to eight hours of this most Saturdays, and sometimes we get greedy and do it again on Sunday. It's a terrific game regardless of its hype level.
Why take the RP out of the RPG? I think that Gloomhaven is a different sort of game than D&D, much more focused on mechanics and battle strategy. You're working together as a group to solve problems, because each dungeon has unique challenges based on the goal, the size, the monsters, and special scenario mechanics. For example, this dungeon is huge, how are we going to reach all the altars before we become exhausted? This place is full of oozes; they keep multiplying and our DPS sucks right now, how are we going to stop them from multiplying? This narrow hallway is full of malicious spirits and stun traps and only one guy in the party can get past the traps; how do we use our resources to get through here? Once you add in the variation of differently-composed parties, you end up with a lot of replayability.
I am fascinated by the leveling system. You do level up your characters, but you will eventually retire them. Each time you retire a character, you get a free perk for the next characters you create. And you can always create new characters at the average party level, which goes up continually. So when the game was new, it was a little grindy and our guys exhausted themselves trying to win scenarios again and again. Now every new character starts with 8 perks, which makes them pretty powerful. Plus a wealthy character can buy permanent enhancements to their powers, which will remain in effect for anyone who picks up that class in the future. I feel like at some point, we're going to decide that it would be more fun to start new characters at lower than average party level, but I don't know when that will be.
We've managed to speed up play because out of habit it's now understood that specific people are going to be in charge of specific things, so we open the box and are playing in less than 10 minutes. But there are already several third-party apps to choose from which help with tracking initiatives, elemental power, and monster health--that is so helpful that one could have been part of the original package instead of the monster cards & sleeves, etc.
My only gripe so far is that I have only seen one person succeed in their class' solo adventure. In general, those seem to be brutally, punishingly difficult. I thought I was doing well with my characters, so I felt heartbroken by my failed attempts.
posted by heatvision at 3:30 AM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Why take the RP out of the RPG? I think that Gloomhaven is a different sort of game than D&D, much more focused on mechanics and battle strategy. You're working together as a group to solve problems, because each dungeon has unique challenges based on the goal, the size, the monsters, and special scenario mechanics. For example, this dungeon is huge, how are we going to reach all the altars before we become exhausted? This place is full of oozes; they keep multiplying and our DPS sucks right now, how are we going to stop them from multiplying? This narrow hallway is full of malicious spirits and stun traps and only one guy in the party can get past the traps; how do we use our resources to get through here? Once you add in the variation of differently-composed parties, you end up with a lot of replayability.
I am fascinated by the leveling system. You do level up your characters, but you will eventually retire them. Each time you retire a character, you get a free perk for the next characters you create. And you can always create new characters at the average party level, which goes up continually. So when the game was new, it was a little grindy and our guys exhausted themselves trying to win scenarios again and again. Now every new character starts with 8 perks, which makes them pretty powerful. Plus a wealthy character can buy permanent enhancements to their powers, which will remain in effect for anyone who picks up that class in the future. I feel like at some point, we're going to decide that it would be more fun to start new characters at lower than average party level, but I don't know when that will be.
We've managed to speed up play because out of habit it's now understood that specific people are going to be in charge of specific things, so we open the box and are playing in less than 10 minutes. But there are already several third-party apps to choose from which help with tracking initiatives, elemental power, and monster health--that is so helpful that one could have been part of the original package instead of the monster cards & sleeves, etc.
My only gripe so far is that I have only seen one person succeed in their class' solo adventure. In general, those seem to be brutally, punishingly difficult. I thought I was doing well with my characters, so I felt heartbroken by my failed attempts.
posted by heatvision at 3:30 AM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
BGG still bangs on about Mage Knight too, which is an awful, clunky, abstruse game with a horrid manual and foggy rules, and is totally unfun even as a solo experience (really, the only way to play).
I've never seen so much being wrong fit into so little space.
posted by jklaiho at 3:30 AM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
I've never seen so much being wrong fit into so little space.
posted by jklaiho at 3:30 AM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
But Gloomhaven, yeah, nice timing with the post, we just started the campaign with three players yesterday. It was good fun! I'm glad I splurged for the laser-cut Broken Token insert for it, it makes storage and setup a breeze compared to what they would be like without it. The game itself is the best dungeon crawler I've played so far. Descent 2nd Ed. has cooler minis and all that, but is weighed down by too much ameritrash (a term of endearment for me) randomness, balance issues and dodgy writing, all of which Gloomhaven seems to avoid for the most part, while also packing in some really great ideas into the mix (like character retirement and the basic mechanism of using and losing cards during scenarios).
I hope we can keep the campaign momentum going. It's likely going to be a 2-3 year endeavor to finish it.
As for the article, the BGG rating system has short term issues with overhyped cult-of-the-new Kickstarter titles, many of which receive perfect 10s way before they are ever released from people emotionally attached to their investments and their dream of how awesome the game ABSOLUTELY HAS GOT TO BE. Fortunately it evens out over time and hyped up titles receive more realistic, though still generally inflated, long-term ratings. Gloomhaven, OTOH, seems to have actual merits behind its high rating, seeing how long it has been on the market already.
posted by jklaiho at 3:45 AM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I hope we can keep the campaign momentum going. It's likely going to be a 2-3 year endeavor to finish it.
As for the article, the BGG rating system has short term issues with overhyped cult-of-the-new Kickstarter titles, many of which receive perfect 10s way before they are ever released from people emotionally attached to their investments and their dream of how awesome the game ABSOLUTELY HAS GOT TO BE. Fortunately it evens out over time and hyped up titles receive more realistic, though still generally inflated, long-term ratings. Gloomhaven, OTOH, seems to have actual merits behind its high rating, seeing how long it has been on the market already.
posted by jklaiho at 3:45 AM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Childres attributes his game’s success, at least among the hardcore denizens of BoardGameGeek, to the way it improves on the appeal of the roleplaying of Dungeons & Dragons, in which crawling dungeons can become rote... It’s heavy on the fun stuff, rather than the grind of repetitious orc slaying, and as the BoardGameGeek leaderboard shows, gamers are appreciative.
Somewhere, someone has taken the creative potential that conventional D&D has for giving rise to memorable hijinx and has utterly squandered it. I don't know who ruined D&D for you, Oliver Roeder, but on behalf of DMs everywhere, I apologize.
posted by belarius at 4:25 AM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Somewhere, someone has taken the creative potential that conventional D&D has for giving rise to memorable hijinx and has utterly squandered it. I don't know who ruined D&D for you, Oliver Roeder, but on behalf of DMs everywhere, I apologize.
posted by belarius at 4:25 AM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I've only played once and it was not my cup of tea - we ended up powerful enough quickly enough that basically nothing posed a threat to us so it was just grinding through to get to the end. But I can see how other people would love it.
I will give them points for not doing the Kickstarter exclusive thing - it really annoys me when game designers make it such that the only people that can get the full experience are those that happened to see it at the right time on Kickstarter and has disposable income at the time to the point that I'll generally decline to buy it at all.
posted by Candleman at 4:36 AM on April 23, 2018
I will give them points for not doing the Kickstarter exclusive thing - it really annoys me when game designers make it such that the only people that can get the full experience are those that happened to see it at the right time on Kickstarter and has disposable income at the time to the point that I'll generally decline to buy it at all.
posted by Candleman at 4:36 AM on April 23, 2018
am considering dumping, as the LCG model is just too exhausting to keep up with
Not that it matters, but this is what I hate about the gaming industry, the need to spend more money to compete or to be complete.
posted by Beholder at 4:40 AM on April 23, 2018
Not that it matters, but this is what I hate about the gaming industry, the need to spend more money to compete or to be complete.
posted by Beholder at 4:40 AM on April 23, 2018
So, while the data portion is interesting, I really don't love the headline framing of the 538 article. Gloomhaven hasn't been deemed the best boardgame. It has been ranked highest on one site, BoardGameGeek, which is both venerable and also really super not a representative slice of the boardgaming community as a whole.
BGG basically resembles the boardgaming crowd c. 2000, before it was discovered that not every game had to be a 4+ hour civ builder or a highly complex strategy game. Its initial userbase and its historically awful UI led to it having a population that is techier, whiter, and more male than the much larger, thriving boardgaming community that has grown since then. I'm not saying it's like, the depths of Reddit, but it's a pretty insular community with fairly off-beat tastes (much more into extreme length, hardcore games than is typical), which somehow masquerades as a neutral arbiter of boardgames.
So ... yeah. Gloomhaven is not "the best boardgame". It's on the top of a list created by a community that tends to love itself some highly complicated games, which is made up of self-selected individuals who were willing to go through the pain of learning a highly complicated website to even be able to contribute a rating.
posted by tocts at 5:09 AM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
BGG basically resembles the boardgaming crowd c. 2000, before it was discovered that not every game had to be a 4+ hour civ builder or a highly complex strategy game. Its initial userbase and its historically awful UI led to it having a population that is techier, whiter, and more male than the much larger, thriving boardgaming community that has grown since then. I'm not saying it's like, the depths of Reddit, but it's a pretty insular community with fairly off-beat tastes (much more into extreme length, hardcore games than is typical), which somehow masquerades as a neutral arbiter of boardgames.
So ... yeah. Gloomhaven is not "the best boardgame". It's on the top of a list created by a community that tends to love itself some highly complicated games, which is made up of self-selected individuals who were willing to go through the pain of learning a highly complicated website to even be able to contribute a rating.
posted by tocts at 5:09 AM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
where else do board gamers get info from apart from BGG? I’m new to it and yeah, it’s not a well-designed site.
posted by harriet vane at 6:39 AM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by harriet vane at 6:39 AM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
I played this this weekend. Setup was a bear, but once we started playing it was very straightforward. We're still working on strategy, of course.
It's HeroQuest reborn for a modern era when we know more about game design. It's fun, I won't deny that. It is also structured for a serious commitment over many sessions, the way that tabletop RPGs are. It's also a game, that as much as I enjoy the tactile sensation of everything, would have been massively assisted by a nice little app to keep track of some stuff.
I think people are right that there is a bit of justification in the purchase driving the ratings. Also, people who are really into this sort of thing are the ones who bought it, so they're going to give it high marks. It's also a co-op game which is really good about preventing a single player from running the team, which is rare enough that I think it does deserve high marks.
I still had more fun in my D&D session on Sunday, although in part that has to do with the setup being printing out my character sheet and bringing my dice.
If it's still in the top five after close to 15 years, I'll start wondering if it's the best game around. Right now, it has a ways to go to catch up to Twilight Struggle. (Which I still haven't played, partially my fault for not getting it when I had the chance, but partially because I knew that I'd have trouble finding someone to play with.))
posted by Hactar at 6:53 AM on April 23, 2018
It's HeroQuest reborn for a modern era when we know more about game design. It's fun, I won't deny that. It is also structured for a serious commitment over many sessions, the way that tabletop RPGs are. It's also a game, that as much as I enjoy the tactile sensation of everything, would have been massively assisted by a nice little app to keep track of some stuff.
I think people are right that there is a bit of justification in the purchase driving the ratings. Also, people who are really into this sort of thing are the ones who bought it, so they're going to give it high marks. It's also a co-op game which is really good about preventing a single player from running the team, which is rare enough that I think it does deserve high marks.
I still had more fun in my D&D session on Sunday, although in part that has to do with the setup being printing out my character sheet and bringing my dice.
If it's still in the top five after close to 15 years, I'll start wondering if it's the best game around. Right now, it has a ways to go to catch up to Twilight Struggle. (Which I still haven't played, partially my fault for not getting it when I had the chance, but partially because I knew that I'd have trouble finding someone to play with.))
posted by Hactar at 6:53 AM on April 23, 2018
I love Gloomhaven, even though my stupid slow Inox Brute is consistently outshined by my friend's Spellweaver, a sparkling murderous XP-glutton wantonly tossing fire bombs into packs of enemies while I stand there hoping maybe I'll get to loot even a single gold coin this scenario.
posted by joelhunt at 7:32 AM on April 23, 2018
posted by joelhunt at 7:32 AM on April 23, 2018
My group is playing weekly, we get one scenario a night in for three players in two to two and a half hours. Our characters are all a little squishy (spellweaver, elemental, tinkerer) but we’re learning to work together and keep each other alive. I love the deck and combat mechanics, and enjoy how open the world is, it feels like there are many choices for what we do and how we do it. I’m excited to continue adding perks and cards and equipment fo my character, making it more my own.
I really like it! But Pandemic Legacy is a bit better.
posted by Kwine at 9:12 AM on April 23, 2018
I really like it! But Pandemic Legacy is a bit better.
posted by Kwine at 9:12 AM on April 23, 2018
How well does Gloomhaven work with a variable number of players? It's virtually impossible to get my entire group together but it's often possible to get a subset of the group in one place for a few hours.
posted by maurice at 9:22 AM on April 23, 2018
posted by maurice at 9:22 AM on April 23, 2018
FWIW, I made a TableTop Simulator mod for Gloomhaven (BGG thread).
If you have any feedback or are willing to help out, please LMK.
(Also, please LMK if you'd like to play a campaign together.)
posted by saizai at 12:10 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
If you have any feedback or are willing to help out, please LMK.
(Also, please LMK if you'd like to play a campaign together.)
posted by saizai at 12:10 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
where else do board gamers get info from apart from BGG?
The only other answer I know is Reddit, which is why I spend time on BGG instead. (Because it may be ugly, but in my experience it's not particularly toxic).
I really want to try Gloomhaven at some point but need the right time to start. My wife and I played both Pandemic Legacy seasons and those would currently be my top 2 games.
BGG overall rankings are definitely for gamers who like more complexity, but you can do filtering and such to find rankings for more specific genres/tastes too.
posted by thefoxgod at 12:27 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
The only other answer I know is Reddit, which is why I spend time on BGG instead. (Because it may be ugly, but in my experience it's not particularly toxic).
I really want to try Gloomhaven at some point but need the right time to start. My wife and I played both Pandemic Legacy seasons and those would currently be my top 2 games.
BGG overall rankings are definitely for gamers who like more complexity, but you can do filtering and such to find rankings for more specific genres/tastes too.
posted by thefoxgod at 12:27 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
> where else do board gamers get info from apart from BGG?
There's a lot of board game review content on Youtube and in the podcast sphere, and you can find creators there who are really inclusive and strive to make their content entertaining & friendly for more casual gamers. Some examples: Shut Up and Sit Down, No Pun Included, Jon Gets Games, Watch It Played, Girls Game Shelf.
Shut up and Sit Down has a forum, but I don't know of another community hub that's as active and full of content as BGG. If you're able to wrangle the interface, some of the BGG guilds (e.g. the 1 Player Guild, A Couple of Gamers) are very welcoming, and much easier to navigate than the huge space of the main forums.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 12:43 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
There's a lot of board game review content on Youtube and in the podcast sphere, and you can find creators there who are really inclusive and strive to make their content entertaining & friendly for more casual gamers. Some examples: Shut Up and Sit Down, No Pun Included, Jon Gets Games, Watch It Played, Girls Game Shelf.
Shut up and Sit Down has a forum, but I don't know of another community hub that's as active and full of content as BGG. If you're able to wrangle the interface, some of the BGG guilds (e.g. the 1 Player Guild, A Couple of Gamers) are very welcoming, and much easier to navigate than the huge space of the main forums.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 12:43 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
When the price comes down and just more copies get out there and played by people who're less heavily invested in it, the ratings average will come down.
My thoughts exactly. The key to BGG success is ensuring that no one but exactly your target audience would ever want to touch your game. Which perfectly describes Twilight Struggle as well, imho.
(Do you enjoy hyper aggressive zero sum games and have exactly one friend whom you don't mind losing? Have I got a game for you!)
posted by kaibutsu at 1:00 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
My thoughts exactly. The key to BGG success is ensuring that no one but exactly your target audience would ever want to touch your game. Which perfectly describes Twilight Struggle as well, imho.
(Do you enjoy hyper aggressive zero sum games and have exactly one friend whom you don't mind losing? Have I got a game for you!)
posted by kaibutsu at 1:00 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Maurice: this is one of the really nice things, every mission cleanly scales with number of players and player advancement. It's required because your group will retire characters and start new ones at different rates but has the side effect that someone can skip a session or you can swap in someone ocasionally and still have them make progress.
posted by xiw at 1:06 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by xiw at 1:06 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's HeroQuest reborn for a modern era when we know more about game design.
HeroQuest is still the greatest game ever because it has the greatest fan video
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:08 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
HeroQuest is still the greatest game ever because it has the greatest fan video
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:08 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
If you're the kind of person who like games and MetaFilter, you should consider joining the MeFight Club. In general, it tends to be a bit more focused on video games, but I would be super-down for more board game discussions, as I tend to cycle through board games waaaaay faster than video games.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:08 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by kaibutsu at 1:08 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
The key to BGG success is ensuring that no one but exactly your target audience would ever want to touch your game.
One of my projects last year was to play every game in the BGG Top 100, and it seems to me that the Top 100 games fall into a few basic categories:
1. The "everything and the kitchen sink" Kickstarters, which only get ratings from the people who have bought them and so skew accordingly (Gloomhaven, the execrable Kingdom Death: Monster, 7th Continent). They have enough content and replayability to keep people within their orbit for a long time. This often overlaps with the legacy games, or games with legacy-like elements (Pandemic Legacy, Mechs vs. Minions, Charterstone).
2. The latest from the more famous designers. if Vlaada Chvátil, Uwe Rosenberg, or Jamey Stegmaier put out a new game, there's a good chance it'll end up on the list because they have a lot of fans.
3. Games tied to specific intellectual properties. A solid Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Warhammer 40K game will usually land in the Top 100 eventually; this is also true of Cthulhu games as long as they're part of the Arkham Horror / Eldritch Horror family.
4. Foundational or influential games that have been on the list forever and whose high ratings have ossified. Puerto Rico, Brass, El Grande, Tigris & Euphrates, Dominion, Pandemic, Stone Age...
5. Strategic battle games. These arose out of wargames - which not many people have played but those that have tend to rate them highly. Paths of Glory and Commands & Colors are the only two actual wargames left on the Top 100 now, I think, because wargamers are increasingly outnumbered - either aging or moving to non-war-themed strategic battle games with economic elements like Scythe, Blood Rage, Eclipse, Kemet, or Twilight Imperium.
6. The intricate Euros - every year a more complex and detailed Euro (non-direct-conflict economy building game) is added to the list: Great Western Trail, Food Chain Magnate, Tzolk'in, Keyflower, Russian Railroads, Clans of Caledonia, The Gallerist...
7. The best of the light fun games - either well executed casual games (7 Wonders, 7 Wonders Duel, Patchwork, Santorini, Codenames) or coop / team games (Captain Sonar, Legendary Encounters). These benefit from large numbers of players rating them well, but they rarely rise to the top of the BGG Top 100 because the purists look down on them.
posted by Paragon at 2:03 PM on April 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
One of my projects last year was to play every game in the BGG Top 100, and it seems to me that the Top 100 games fall into a few basic categories:
1. The "everything and the kitchen sink" Kickstarters, which only get ratings from the people who have bought them and so skew accordingly (Gloomhaven, the execrable Kingdom Death: Monster, 7th Continent). They have enough content and replayability to keep people within their orbit for a long time. This often overlaps with the legacy games, or games with legacy-like elements (Pandemic Legacy, Mechs vs. Minions, Charterstone).
2. The latest from the more famous designers. if Vlaada Chvátil, Uwe Rosenberg, or Jamey Stegmaier put out a new game, there's a good chance it'll end up on the list because they have a lot of fans.
3. Games tied to specific intellectual properties. A solid Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Warhammer 40K game will usually land in the Top 100 eventually; this is also true of Cthulhu games as long as they're part of the Arkham Horror / Eldritch Horror family.
4. Foundational or influential games that have been on the list forever and whose high ratings have ossified. Puerto Rico, Brass, El Grande, Tigris & Euphrates, Dominion, Pandemic, Stone Age...
5. Strategic battle games. These arose out of wargames - which not many people have played but those that have tend to rate them highly. Paths of Glory and Commands & Colors are the only two actual wargames left on the Top 100 now, I think, because wargamers are increasingly outnumbered - either aging or moving to non-war-themed strategic battle games with economic elements like Scythe, Blood Rage, Eclipse, Kemet, or Twilight Imperium.
6. The intricate Euros - every year a more complex and detailed Euro (non-direct-conflict economy building game) is added to the list: Great Western Trail, Food Chain Magnate, Tzolk'in, Keyflower, Russian Railroads, Clans of Caledonia, The Gallerist...
7. The best of the light fun games - either well executed casual games (7 Wonders, 7 Wonders Duel, Patchwork, Santorini, Codenames) or coop / team games (Captain Sonar, Legendary Encounters). These benefit from large numbers of players rating them well, but they rarely rise to the top of the BGG Top 100 because the purists look down on them.
posted by Paragon at 2:03 PM on April 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
It's probably heresy, but I feel like a lot of these complex games, both tabletop RPGs and boardgames, would be significantly improved and simplified (in terms of the boring parts like setup) by just moving a lot of the mechanics and lesser used pieces and stuff onto an app. I think I remember reading that Mansions of Madness changed its keeper (essentially game master) role for an app a while back, and that's probably a direction a lot if this stuff could go in. You can hide the weird mechanics of dice, cards, and whatnot away as abstract mathematics in an app, and let people focus on the social face to face play. I'm not sufficiently plugged into the RPG community these days to know if that's where things are going, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't at least being explored. Also, being able to play with a group of friends remotely might be attractive.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:12 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:12 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
I don't think it's heresy at all, though at some point I think the question becomes: should this just be a computer game?
It's how I've felt about 4x type boardgames for a long time. I'm basically in the target market -- I will totally play a boardgame that takes 3-6 hours (though this happens rarely, as those I play with tend to not be interested in that level of commitment to a single game). However, I have a really hard time justifying nearly any 4x-style boardgame because due to the physical limitations of keeping track of all the pieces they necessarily are about as heavy as a pretty lightweight 4x computer game. You could get a better experience playing the original Masters of Orion (and it'd probably finish sooner!).
Basically: there's a lot of benefit to face-to-face boardgames, but there's some things that computers are just so much better at that it starts to feel like you're engaging in some sort of performance art to try to map certain kinds of games into a boardgame form.
posted by tocts at 2:45 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's how I've felt about 4x type boardgames for a long time. I'm basically in the target market -- I will totally play a boardgame that takes 3-6 hours (though this happens rarely, as those I play with tend to not be interested in that level of commitment to a single game). However, I have a really hard time justifying nearly any 4x-style boardgame because due to the physical limitations of keeping track of all the pieces they necessarily are about as heavy as a pretty lightweight 4x computer game. You could get a better experience playing the original Masters of Orion (and it'd probably finish sooner!).
Basically: there's a lot of benefit to face-to-face boardgames, but there's some things that computers are just so much better at that it starts to feel like you're engaging in some sort of performance art to try to map certain kinds of games into a boardgame form.
posted by tocts at 2:45 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Mansions of Madness with the app is quite nice. As is Alchemists (which is like Clue mashed up with a parody of graduate school; it's fantastic); it's notable for using image recognition to read your cards when you secretly mix a potion to prevent cheating. So does seem like some things are moving that direction.
The interesting design constraint is that the app doesn't actually know what's going on in the board, generally; there's a lot of state missing from its representation of the game at any time. And since board games are all about state, you need to be pretty clever about how tasks get offloaded on the app - you don't want players to have to input a lot of turn-by-turn data...
posted by kaibutsu at 4:44 PM on April 23, 2018
The interesting design constraint is that the app doesn't actually know what's going on in the board, generally; there's a lot of state missing from its representation of the game at any time. And since board games are all about state, you need to be pretty clever about how tasks get offloaded on the app - you don't want players to have to input a lot of turn-by-turn data...
posted by kaibutsu at 4:44 PM on April 23, 2018
Personally I really don't want to use an app while playing a board game. I love videogames and board games, but I guess I want the two very separate?
Also, part of the fun of the board game is "doing" stuff. The physical actions, tokens, dice, etc. Every once in a while someone wants to use like a dice app on their phone instead of real dice --- ugh. And having an app track some of the rules just means people won't really know all the rules.
I mean, I don't really care if _other_ people play those games with apps, but I at least would not consider one.
posted by thefoxgod at 5:28 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Also, part of the fun of the board game is "doing" stuff. The physical actions, tokens, dice, etc. Every once in a while someone wants to use like a dice app on their phone instead of real dice --- ugh. And having an app track some of the rules just means people won't really know all the rules.
I mean, I don't really care if _other_ people play those games with apps, but I at least would not consider one.
posted by thefoxgod at 5:28 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I think a lot of the appeal of board games is the physicality - the satisfaction of clicking coins and spinning dials and falling dice and stacking tokens. I work on a computer all day long, so doing something manual (and social) is an important relief.
posted by Paragon at 5:42 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Paragon at 5:42 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
tocts: I don't think it's heresy at all, though at some point I think the question becomes: should this just be a computer game?
Isaac Childres aka Cephalofair, the creator of Gloomhaven, has explicitly said he has no intention of making it a computer game.
On the other hand, he also did give me his blessing to make the TTS mod, which is essentially a computerized version of it, and will try to automate, script, or reformat all the tedious or spoilery stuff (setup, cross-referencing, things that are on the same page but you're not supposed to read yet, etc).
thefoxgod: Personally I really don't want to use an app while playing a board game.
You might not like This War of Mine: The Board Game, then. It's actually a pretty good game, but it has a large "book of scripts" that you can access with the companion app, together with optional rules that are only available in the app.
On the other hand, I made a mod for that too, and included everything that's in the Book of Scripts & app optional rules in the mod. (Except the silly lockpicking minigame.)
(I also posted the extracted spreadsheet on BGG & gdrive.)
How do you feel about games like Space Alert, which (more or less) require an mp3 player to play the real-time mission cues? (Yes, there's technically a backup variation to do without it, but.)
posted by saizai at 2:59 AM on April 24, 2018
Isaac Childres aka Cephalofair, the creator of Gloomhaven, has explicitly said he has no intention of making it a computer game.
On the other hand, he also did give me his blessing to make the TTS mod, which is essentially a computerized version of it, and will try to automate, script, or reformat all the tedious or spoilery stuff (setup, cross-referencing, things that are on the same page but you're not supposed to read yet, etc).
thefoxgod: Personally I really don't want to use an app while playing a board game.
You might not like This War of Mine: The Board Game, then. It's actually a pretty good game, but it has a large "book of scripts" that you can access with the companion app, together with optional rules that are only available in the app.
On the other hand, I made a mod for that too, and included everything that's in the Book of Scripts & app optional rules in the mod. (Except the silly lockpicking minigame.)
(I also posted the extracted spreadsheet on BGG & gdrive.)
How do you feel about games like Space Alert, which (more or less) require an mp3 player to play the real-time mission cues? (Yes, there's technically a backup variation to do without it, but.)
posted by saizai at 2:59 AM on April 24, 2018
We use an app to track monster hit points and status effects because that's the part that I find the most clunky with Gloomhaven. Plus the set up. Even with the Broken Token inserts it's a pain. I'm not sure how anyone is managing to play in 3 hours though, I keep looking at the scenarios and thinking we'll be done in 2 hours but so far that hasn't happened a single time, it has always averaged 4-5 hours for us, even knowing our decks. Of course set up and putting it away probably wastes almost an hour of that.
posted by Hazelsmrf at 4:48 AM on April 24, 2018
posted by Hazelsmrf at 4:48 AM on April 24, 2018
"It's probably heresy, but I feel like a lot of these complex games, both tabletop RPGs and boardgames, would be significantly improved and simplified (in terms of the boring parts like setup) by just moving a lot of the mechanics and lesser used pieces and stuff onto an app. I think I remember reading that Mansions of Madness changed its keeper (essentially game master) role for an app a while back, and that's probably a direction a lot if this stuff could go in. You can hide the weird mechanics of dice, cards, and whatnot away as abstract mathematics in an app, and let people focus on the social face to face play. I'm not sufficiently plugged into the RPG community these days to know if that's where things are going, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't at least being explored. Also, being able to play with a group of friends remotely might be attractive."
I mean, that's only a few steps removed from just being a really fun multiplayer videogame with your friends. I don't say that with disdain, I want such things to be around and popular. I love boardgames but don't like any of the parts having to do with setting them up or running the rules manually. I want to have fun and creative experiences, not get bogged down doing math or referencing charts, or picking up a card to determine what happens etc. Videogames do all that nonsense for me!
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:23 PM on April 24, 2018
I mean, that's only a few steps removed from just being a really fun multiplayer videogame with your friends. I don't say that with disdain, I want such things to be around and popular. I love boardgames but don't like any of the parts having to do with setting them up or running the rules manually. I want to have fun and creative experiences, not get bogged down doing math or referencing charts, or picking up a card to determine what happens etc. Videogames do all that nonsense for me!
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:23 PM on April 24, 2018
This is fivethirtyeight we are talking about here, so the article is as much about the way the ranking process functions (and the oddness that can lead to) as it is about the game and the ranking.
On another note, I am tempted to buy a copy and save it for retirement. It sounds amazing to have this much group content in a box.
posted by quillbreaker at 10:28 AM on May 4, 2018
On another note, I am tempted to buy a copy and save it for retirement. It sounds amazing to have this much group content in a box.
posted by quillbreaker at 10:28 AM on May 4, 2018
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I like it pretty well. It looks/feels good. The writing isn't bad, and the 'legacy' elements seem to be building together toward something. There's lots of choice and challenge for each individual character on most quests (usually you can complete over 2-4 hours, depending on the motivation of the crowd). Lots of pretty neat spells and races. Also, there are a number of goals that the party can work towards (reputation, special access to quests via good/bad alignment). As the party levels up, so does the world, and so do the 'starting' levels of newly rolled characters (e.g. your friends that just show up for a night or two). That's a well-handled mechanic.
Overall, the best part is that there's no need for a Dungeon Master. That's one of the reasons for having so many pieces and parts- there are plenty of scenario cards and instructions that take on this function.
posted by cult_url_bias at 7:27 PM on April 22, 2018 [1 favorite]