The Thread Where We Are Board Game Geeks

Carcasonne is fine. I dunno. It's nice enough, a bit Zen.

carcassonne is great, as is settlers of catan, which i play lots online (http://catan.jsettlers.org/index.html--not buggy like it used to be!).

i play this occasionally too: http://www.blokus.com/index.htm ...cool spatial stuff. there's a similar game that i've played irl that's like it but 3d which is great but totally hurts my brane.

links to addictive board games that can be played online, please! i always need new addictions.

One board game I liked a lot but is apparently hard to buy new now is RoboRally. Is it true you can't buy it anymore?

i've only ever played risk really.

Chris I have added you as a GEEKBUDDY. What is Big Boggle?

http://www.brettspielwelt.info/ is the one with pretty much every nu-school boardgame ever, though I agree with chris that it's kinda daunting sometimes. You might like Puerto Rico J?

Main interests there is Carcassonne, perhaps predictably. I managed to get the PC edition cheap on ebay so I can hone my skills against the AI before playing with people I don't know (and the inevitable pwnage).

Big Boggle is like regular Boggle but with 5x5.

About Scrabble practice ruining Big Boggle, I have to comment that I dominate by going for the big eight letter words and completely neglecting the tiny ones. So I think memorizing obscure combinations of two or three letters isn't essential to Boggle the way it is to Scrabble, given the point distribution. Geekiness!!!

One board game I liked a lot but is apparently hard to buy new now is RoboRally. Is it true you can't buy it anymore?
RoboRally went out of print, but I believe that a new edition of it just came out.

Ticket To Ride is very, very light (and isn't it one of those games where the 2nd version, Europe, fixed some problems in the first?) but it's certainly fun enough.

Juliaa would still like Puerto Rico.

This is how I managed to convince my ex to play, and he spent all his time trying to make his courtyard symmetrical, and somehow he won, despite generally not being very good at games.

Oltremare is okay, I think I might just be tired of free-trading games.

But I actually haven't played that many "conquer the world" type games. I'm sure there's a relevant GeekList on BGG.

Louis XIV, still.
Ingenius a bit (That wacky Knizia and his ridiculously simple ideas!)
Goldbrau, which is just the daftest, most sweetly inconsequential thing ever to play with beer and laughing when you're done with realer games, it says "the cleverest businessman wins" on the box but nothing could be further from the truth. I really like it!

http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=3818

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/4829/captainawesomeie3.jpg

I prefer 2 player co-op, or 3 player co-op my 7yo could join in, pls to recommend.

recently bought the co op game The Crew which was recommended by a couple of friends, yet to play tho

i've played that, it's a coop trick-taking game, very simple yet clever idea

Sprawlopolis is a great little portable solo game. I like to play Robinson Crusoe solo for something more complex. I like Navajo Wars a lot but I feel like I’m still figuring it out. Fields of Arle is a nice solo game with a lot of freedom.

Bartender talked about a single player board game called hostage something or other

I'm not massively keen on the artwork or reimagined world of the new edition of Libertalia, but it's playable as hell.

Played a couple games of Wingspan this weekend. Hits a nice sweet spot of being just complicated enough to be interesting and re-playable without being overwhelming or slow.

looking forward to Frosthaven, which has almost arrived...

and proud to have published my first profile for the new yorker, on Gloomhaven's isaac childres:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-board-game-auteur-makes-his-next-move

Congrats Sean!

Sean, that's great!!

My recent plays are all pretty regular stuff -- Ticket To Ride and Guillotine with the family on thanksgiving, Azul: Summer Pavillion w/ the wife & friends.

I haven't done as much solo gaming since I started running RPGs twice weekly, but I'm hoping to spend time with The Great Battles Of Julius Caesar (GMT) over my winter week off. Also in wargame world, I love "With It Or On It" by Hollandspiele; a very simple system about collapsing lines of hoplites. There's a slightly more complicated but similar game by the same designer (Amabel Holland) called "The Grass Crown" but since my boardgaming time has dropped so much, I'm not sure it's sensible for me to pick up rn.

Next time we have friends over for game afternoon, I'm hoping to run through a Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective case. (can also be played solo.)

Going to repeat my suggestion for Sprawlopolis - it's a tiny portable little game but is really engaging and gets the mind chugging, trying to optimize your roadworks based on the varying victory conditions.

i collect early 80s roleplaying games and $50 is pretty much the going rate for a good condition box set by TSR or FASA or GDW or chaosium

Woof, some of the Call of Cthulhu box sets I'm looking for would be a STEAL at $50.

well done! never got the gloomhaven bug but excited to read that

actually played eldritch horror for first time in a long time over last week's vacation. it was very fun. finally did the thing i've been meaning to do where i pulled out all the expansion cards (six boxes worth) and sorted them into sets (by expansion). playing with only the base cards made things way faster and simpler

i have been looking at root, its expansions and oath quite a bit. the art is irresistible. i already have too many games i don't play, though

I think the cost of the original CoC box rocketed after Chaosium's new old box.

I paid about $50 for a Top Secret box about 10 years ago, think they're routinely double that now. I've got a fairly pristine 1st Edn Gangbusters and the first two (?) modules from when they came out.

xp inflation is a thing. that was definitely a "pre pandemic stimulus check" post!

but prices seem to be are creeping back down. i've been looking at car wars box sets, for example (the deluxe cardboard one with cat # sjg1301, not the little plastic boxes which are being reprinted) and if you're willing to live with punched counters and bent corners you can find them for $30-50

the good news about call of cthulhu is that moving forward or backward between different editions is generally pretty easy. the 1st edition stuff with the endearingly goofy artwork is super spendy, but if you're willing to grab kinda ugly 4th or 5th ed stuff it's a lot cheaper. i actually have the 5th ed softcover (iirc 4th ed softcover was the first one i got, in high school) so that works out ok for me

for example if you can deal with an early 90s copy of masks of nyarlathotep vs an 80s one the going rate on ebay goes from $100-200 to around $50-70. orient express bit harder to find but one just went on ebay for $70!

i would say like any collectibles (discogs, rpgs on ebay) you have to learn to ignore whatever the current general asking price is and focus on the sold prices. i find that on ebay saved searches + alerts are my friend. like i am currently shopping for dungeoneer's survival guide 1st ed (not sure why, aside from map of the underdark it's even more useless than the wilderness survival guide, because i'm collecting i guess) and while there's always copies going up for $75 a fine looking copy for $30 shows up about once a month.

and hey at least we're collecting crappy 80s rpgs and not magic cards. i don't have any interest in mtg but am constantly seeing 1st wave stuff i owned going for $1000 or more!

I've got one of the 90s reprintings of Masks in book form, and the recent reprint of orient express, so I'm not particularly concerned about getting those as original boxed sets. Thinking more along the lines of Dreamlands, Gaslight, some of the old campaigns like Spawn of Azathoth.

xpost, god don't remind me of the MTG cards I had when I was a youth.....

I got my dungeoneers survival guide out of an urge to just have all the the core AD&D hardcovers; this would have been a few years ago, it was $25.

Sorry, I don't want to de-rail this thread into an RPG thread.

I haven't played Eldritch Horror in ages. I like it, but my wife does not so much.

xpost -- I know a guy in the bay area who has a copy of car wars for sale i think. He always picks games up at the Alameda flea if they're cheap.

I want to say my box is 2nd Edn because I'm sure it's got the award winning decal but I could be wrong.

I have no idea why I bought the 40tg Anniversary 2" box but there you go.

lol I bought the reprinted 1" AND 2" boxes. The 2" has a bunch of the early supplements, which I like to read even if as adventures they are a bit old fashioned. The 1" box remains shrink wrapped; I think I thought I was gonna give it as a gift to my cousin but ended up getting her the current starter set instead.

i will derail it for you by agreeing that the campaign sets can be pretty expensive. the dreamlands stories might be some of my favorite lovecraft so that's one i was interested in awhile back and sort of gave up on

i've always been interested in chaosium's elrich and hawkmoon games (stormbringer is the umbrella name, i think?) which are fairly generic 80s percentile dice crap with some nice maps. not super different from rolemaster / merp products, without the amazing crit tables. and those are just always expensive too. idk what it is about them.

i always thought chaosium was an american company (mailing address in berkeley?) but also a lot of these games seem a lot easier to find on uk ebay, more press coverage in uk mags like white dwarf vs. dragon. did they move from uk to usa at some point? feel like this would be easy to look up, but i'm home sick from work today so feeling especially lazy

They are still based in the US but a lot of the current development team is based in the UK iirc.

I think the Elric & Hawkmoon games are expensive because of Moorcock superfandom.

as someone who's thought about writing a jerry cornelius rpg, i can relate to moorcock superfandom.

also there doesn't seem to be a good default ttrpg thread. maybe the "incredible austerity" one?

i can certainly understand not liking eldritch horror. it took me a long time to figure out to figure out the theory of it (well, develop my own, which may or may not be right) and figure out a workable strategy for it. and even with that you're always getting senselessly punished by attrition, for no real reason other than getting punished by attrition is how mythos horror works!

has anyone played Tapestry? my old Iron Crown friends were raving about it last time we hung out

also really enjoying Code Words when we can get 4 people together

Code Names (i think that's the actual title?) is fun; there's a 2-player version that we picked up and it's just not as fun as the 4 player version imo. But we rarely have another couple to play with. Not aware of Tapestry!

It gets mentioned upthread, but I'm interested in playing Eclipse. I like the 4x style of interstellar exploration. There's also the GMT Space Empires game but i think it's between printings rn.

Code Names! yes. I can't imagine how that would work with only two players, the 4-person dynamic is so fun

Role Playing Games: Search/Destroy

This is the generic rpg thread but a long time since anyone posted there

Role-Playing Games crush of shame poll

Why did you stop playing Role Playing Games?

Other candidates

There was one for indie/non fantasy RPGs that was in use a couple of years ago but I can't find it

But yes, the austerity one is the most up to date I guess

eclipse is super fun! but i haven't played in AGES. i also love Arkham Horror (the original bgg, not the card game) for some of the reasons you describe re Eldritch Horror above. but no one ever wants to play with me. it's so long (which is maybe why i love it)

Tabletop RPGs/story-building games - beyond D&D

Found it, this is the most alive RPG thread

there is a noise board dnd thread that - in classic old meets new fashion - starts with like 800 gigantic images, all of which are now dead links

aldo, see here:

The incredible austerity of D&D in 1980

that's the most active RPG thread in my memory, I tell stories from the 80s

(and 70s)

the new yorker article is great

Any recommendations for a game for an 11 year old boy, to play with the family? I've found quite a few hippy nature ones, I think I want to go a bit cooler, space themed if possible.

Galaxy Trucker. You each have to put together a spaceship from loads of pieces, like a competetive puzzle. Then you have to fly that spaceship to its destination, and hope the hodgepodge of elements will see off the asteroids, pirates, slavers and other misfortune that might come your way.

That was in my long list so I'll go for it, thanks!

I love it, am always playing it with my 8yo, but very much with training wheels on, so I reckon it should keep an 11yo involved, but also not scare off the rest of the family.

Yeah my first thought was Galaxy Trucker but there are guns etc (although purely defensive) if that isn't what you're after. (Solely based on "hippy nature" as a prompt.)

Tiny Epic Galaxies, Chimera Station, Asking For Trobils all good but don't know how in print the last two are which would probably be my recs. I'd also say Loop Inc but I think it's too complicated.

if you think they could handle a worker placement / tile laying game, i have black angel and think it is pretty cool. i think a sharp 11 year old could swing it.

on the other hand might be a bit too much, give the 2-3 hr play time, plus i think shifting victory conditions could be especially confusing for some kids

Yeah 2-3 hours is a bit long. Thanks for all the suggestions, I've bought Galaxy Trucker.

Galaxy Trucker is one of the few games I can think of that uses dexterity and a fun theme but is surprisingly strategic. Great choice for an 11yo I think!

galaxy trucker is classic, also you just unburied a memory of a different game i played like a decade ago that was a space 4x strategy game except movement around the board was done by finger flicking your wooden disk spaceship crokinole-style

I wasn't sure whether Galaxy Trucker truly counts as dexterity but I would be very bad at the game you describe, regardless of how strategic it is

you just unburied a memory of a different game i played like a decade ago that was a space 4x strategy game except movement around the board was done by finger flicking your wooden disk spaceship crokinole-style

this sounds very fun! if you remember the title...

Ascending Empires was the title, looks like it's actually getting a new edition next year

Thank you!

Does anyone else here play on https://boardgamearena.com/? My game night crew have been having a lot of fun with Decrypto (which is a twist on Codenames).