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18 Jan 2016 13:16 #220132 by VonTush

Gary Sax wrote: Also, re: Study in Emerald. I think it is the ultimate type of game that does not play well on first or second play because the endgame is SO subtle. I'm not sure why the BGG one-play-then-a-new-game crowd would ever be into this game at all---the 2nd edition actually surprises me quite a bit.

I'm glad I have the first edition.


Same here.

So, I'm still trying to wrap my head around being Known to the Authorities - If I understand it correctly, if there's a way for VPs to be scored, even if they don't help your side or be claimed by your side, you become known correct? For example, I am a Loyalist who hasn't scored VPs, I obtain an Agent that provides 2 VPs to the Restorationists, so even though I will never count those VPs I become Known correct?

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18 Jan 2016 23:19 - 19 Jan 2016 13:17 #220162 by Cranberries
Just played race three of Detroit Cleveland Grand Prix with my kids. Whenever someone would drop a ten card, my daughter would play the speed racer theme while they moved and we would all dance to it. One of the funnest gaming moments in recent memory.

Last edit: 19 Jan 2016 13:17 by Cranberries.
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19 Jan 2016 01:33 #220165 by Frohike
I've played my first couple of games of Power Grid with the family and really enjoyed it. My wife dominated the first game. She won while I fumbled around haplessly trying to figure out the balance between the price of my plants, my resources, expanding my grid, and gaming the turn order. She has a knack for planning and budgeting and this gave her a massive upper hand until the second game, where I started playing more like a dick and hoarding resources to price other players out of buying as much. She was still close to winning the game but made a crucial mistake around endgame where she went all-in with efficient oil plants without having a stockpile of oil to back it up, not noticing that the market was drying up and I had enough buying power to grab enough of it to shut her out. I saw that she was poised to win and purposefully slowed my expansion just shy of 17 to prevent endgame until the next turn, and sniped her lead. She thought I was kingmaking for my son to win, but I could tell he had been overspending and didn't have enough to tie-break, and I won.

I've never seen her get pissed about a board game, but it happened with this one. We're not care bear players so it's cool. But I think this was probably my last victory with Power Grid. The meta will certainly escalate beyond my capabilities from this point forward.
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19 Jan 2016 08:29 #220175 by Black Barney
Frohike, you just gotta learn how to quickly deescalate the situation. I Recommend saying to her, "...it's because you played very poorly. "

Black Barney - divorced since 2014
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19 Jan 2016 08:29 - 19 Jan 2016 08:29 #220176 by Legomancer
Played a couple games of Epic Card Game last night, even though I could happily never hear the word "Epic" used by a nerd again. Here are my thoughts:

I played the hell out of Magic in the early 90s and loved it. I still miss it, and every now and then fight temptation to get back into it. I grabbed this game on a whim after hearing that it was essentially "speed magic".

That it is, and my hat's off to these folks who figured out how to distill Magic down to its essence and make it all make sense without adding a lot of the timing and wonkiness that Magic has inherited. Well done.

Unfortunately, it seems that unless you do something like drafting hands or deck construction, and unless you know the cards pretty well, it's a game of just random things happening until someone wins. Playing as-is out of the box you don't have much control over your fate. And the reason I'm not playing Magic or Netrunner or such is because I really don't want to learn a bunch of cards and do deck construction and such. I have other games that give a similar feel right out of the box, most notably Omen: A Reign of War.

Nevertheless, I can't deny that there is some attraction here, and if I can find someone willing to go for multiple plays, it might be worth keeping around.
Last edit: 19 Jan 2016 08:29 by Legomancer.
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19 Jan 2016 14:05 #220218 by Jexik
I picked up the D&D 5th edition* starter kit for 16 bucks a couple weekends ago and played it with my girlfriend and her family last Friday. I had just a few hours of preparation in reading the rulebooks and the start of the adventure and we were able to hop right in within minutes. This set has 5 pre-generated characters that players pick from, and then you just go. Her mother had played back in the late 70s or early 80s, and really wanted to be a wizard again. My girlfriend took the halfling rogue, her father got stuck with the dwarf cleric, and her son (5) took the well armored and close ranged fighter who was a noble with a greataxe, because hey, he's the closest thing to King Arthur. (The 5th premade character is a fighter that focuses on using a longbow well, but happens to have a greatsword too).

The Cleric started off the first combat of the game by scoring a critical hit and smashing a goblin into nothing. The Fighter didn't want to get dirty right away so he threw some javelins until they ran out. Then he stepped down to strike down a goblin with his "good axe." They made one later encounter easier by using a Sleep spell, but then they had trouble with a particularly large group of enemies, and are now planning to leave their current dungeon and rest up, and possibly even head back to town, even though they haven't cleared the place out. I think they might get ambushed in the woods on the way back...


I like this set a lot so far. As someone who normally played a PC in the past (in 2e and 3e mostly), this is a welcome supplement. I've been reading through the adventure book so I can be ready for most of the things they can do, with the knowledge that I can't actually expect everything that they're gonna try to do. The one thing that seems tricky to me is that the encounter difficulty seems to ramp up more quickly than the characters will scale in power, but maybe I'm underestimating player ingenuity.

*It doesn't actually say 5th edition on the cover, but it is.
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19 Jan 2016 16:17 #220260 by Gary Sax
Sounds like more fun than the extended pleasantries and bullshitting I do with my spouse's family...
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19 Jan 2016 21:38 - 19 Jan 2016 21:40 #220295 by Jexik
Haha, you have no idea! I keep being surprised by this family. We played through Pandemic Legacy as well.

When it started out, she and I went out to bars and shows and restaurants like most people, and we played a game of chess because she had told me that she and her brother and dad used to play a lot. She liked my sense of humor and we were overall pretty compatible. I tried out Hanabi with her on a lark. It wasn't,"hey that's kind of neat, let's do something else." Her response was to keep trying to get a higher score. From there I just keep trying new stuff and she likes most of it, from Tragedy Looper to Codenames. The only game that she really didn't care for was someone else's copy of Impulse. I haven't shown her some other games that I have a feeling she won't like, such as Race for the Galaxy- victory point maximizing games in general seem like non-starters, which is fine by me.
Last edit: 19 Jan 2016 21:40 by Jexik.
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20 Jan 2016 05:06 - 20 Jan 2016 07:42 #220309 by Vistula Lurker
Last month been i've been alteranating between Merchants of Venus and Mice and Mystics.

I really fell in love with MoV (not at first sight, mind you, my wife stil refuses to play it in fear of epilepsy). I've figured that there are some kinds of solitary-like play that are right with me and this one seems to be the case. Maybe we should be more agressive in picking out what others might want or "trapping" each other with spaceports but so far everytime we set it up I look foward to some leisure time drifting in my space-yacht among the shiny-shiny stars.

I've also managed to score a copy of Mice and Mystics and it turned out to be pretty beat up one but in a charming way. Like some kid was toying with it a little bit too much. It has "love" written deep into every single scratch. So we're playing it with my progeny couple times a week. We're stuck at fourth chapter as every time the hourglass runs to the end much too quickly. I didn't think this one would have such a strong dungeon-crawly feel to it. The exploration and constant fights certainly scratch more of my itches that I've expected and the events brought forth by the story do induce a nice sense of variation. One of it greatest strenghts is how each mouse is such a strong individual. It certainly helps to create a feeling of connection and to immerse more deeply into the adventure. Much better game that I've expected so far.
Last edit: 20 Jan 2016 07:42 by Vistula Lurker.
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20 Jan 2016 12:27 #220339 by Unicron
@VonTush: Correct! In Study in Emerald, any action that could potentially net a player points (assassinating/hiding royalty, killing an agent, taking a card worth VP's or control of a city) makes you known. Once known, you cannot revert back.
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20 Jan 2016 19:27 - 20 Jan 2016 21:40 #220379 by Sevej
Had a great time soloing Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game. Up to mission two of the campaign now. I don't think it's as hard as people said it is, but I accidentally picked what to be considered the strongest character pair: the Waywatcher and the Warrior Priest. They work exactly as I imagined, with the Warrior Priest being a front line fighter utilizing his guaranteed damage on multi target attacks. The Waywatcher is a great support. While her attack isn't too hot, she's capable of dealing unblockable damage with her aid action (and boosting the Warrior Priest's attack/other actions). She's also great at controlling the battlefield. Sending enemies back to the shadows is absolutely priceless when you're about to fly off a room.

I think the Sadlers are my favorite game designers right now. They knock it outta the park with Descent 2nd Ed, and now WQTACG is doing what other dungeon crawlers can't. Even without a map WQTACG is doing great with forming the battle lines, differentiating the vanguards and the supports. WoW-like aggro mechanism is present, and it does feel like a swirling combat where you're trying to manage your opponents with what you have. While it still suffers from minor "whittling the heroes" syndrome, there's a pacing control here, as with each new room the tension is heightened once more. What's better though, you have control on the pacing. Do you want to progress with enemies on your tail, or can you afford to delay while killing the monsters? The dice are fantastic, and I absolutely love when they explode.

The only mechanism I don't like is the forced timer, but I do think that it's a necessity to prevent heroes from turtling. And in this one the designers use it as a narrative device, which is a plus.

Finally, it being a card game means that you need to remember more rules than usual as card games are worse than board games on the subject of structuring a game.
Last edit: 20 Jan 2016 21:40 by Sevej.
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21 Jan 2016 22:22 #220462 by hotseatgames
Tried my first game of Phantom Leader tonight, courtesy of Secret Satan. Got completely devastated. This was due to a combination of the following factors:
1. TONS of opposition
2. Some poor ordnance choices on my part
3. That ordnance being removed due to my planes getting shot to hell
4. Guns being pretty ineffective

Even with good choices, the odds are severely stacked. Does anyone win this game?

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23 Jan 2016 19:12 - 23 Jan 2016 19:14 #220687 by repoman
So having recently acquired Shadows of Malice by trading Joshua Q Look my copy of Sekigahara for it I took it for a solo spin tonight. I played it once or twice when it first came out and was intrigued by it but we just never seemed to get back to it.

So as a rules refresher, the experience was a positive one. As a boost to self esteem it was quite brutal. I decided to be Mr. Man and play with only one avatar and no starting treasure. The map was a single tile. I spent a turn or two visiting the drunken mystic whose secret mountain still was reputed to produce magical elixirs and the I traveled to the city of Jug which also took great pride in making potions of superior quality.

With gates disappearing in the shadow realm, I thought I should go out into the wild and get some practical experience in the killing of things and the pillaging of their life force and material possessions. What I ended up getting was practical experience in running for my damn life as the creatures that were in those woods were way too powerful for the likes of me.

A shadow arrived from out of the portal so I figured I best get crackin', hike up my shorts, and try to kill something. The creature I encountered was a very strong slime creature which took great delight in rending me limb from limb. So..sorry world....looks like you're going to have to deal with the shadow yourselves.


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Last edit: 23 Jan 2016 19:14 by repoman.
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23 Jan 2016 19:40 - 23 Jan 2016 19:41 #220689 by Gary Sax
One avatar isn't much fun, especially if you draw a non-combat special power. If I could mentally juggle it, I would suggest using 4, even if playing solo.

I love how powerful items and skills are in Shadows, particularly one shot items (eg potions) that get stockpiled in other games like it.
Last edit: 23 Jan 2016 19:41 by Gary Sax.
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23 Jan 2016 23:41 - 23 Jan 2016 23:43 #220696 by Cranberries
I played Agricola: All Creatures Great and Small with a friend at work. It's like Zooloretto with Agricola smeared all over it. It was pretty fun, and I would buy it to play with my kids but I don't think it's $30 fun. For that price I could get Abaddon or Shogun. I'd write more but the magnesium citrate is kicking in. Goodnight, Saturday.
Last edit: 23 Jan 2016 23:43 by Cranberries.

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