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Diving into BoardGameGeek

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Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#71

Post by scrollaway »

brimble wrote: post #55
scrollaway wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here's a more developed (and spicier) take then. Larger board games are very often mere laundry lists of systems that can be found in many other board games. The longer games tend to have systems that MAKE the game long, rather than cause people to develop a strategy. One example is some mechanics forcing synchronous turns, or even worse, preventing you from preparing your turn in advance. Which gets even worse…

In defense of complex games: My favorite part of a game is discovering it. I'm in it for the easy "a-ha!" moments and as soon as it starts to look like a particular game is going to have to become a whole thing for me to keep getting those from it (by moving on to "competitive" levels of play, memorized strategies, et c.), I'm done with it. Complex games often throw enough variables in the mix to keep things interest…

Thanks for sharing your view! It's interesting you say your favorite part is the discovery. For me, my first play-through of a game, if it's a decent game I always end a little sad and annoyed that the next playthroughs will probably be a lot better now that "the group knows the rule"... simply because we likely won't play it again, so it feels like I missed out.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#72

Post by kbenson »

Oddskar wrote: post #65
692 wrote: post #6

I look at Boardgamegeek almost ever time I make a purchase of a game and to get ideas. To see what other peoples think, their reviews about the game and game play, strategy vs luck element, type of game etc It's similar to imdb for movies, its a place full of opinions. I take everything with pinch of salt, but it's the best review site around

The more amateur reviews I've read on BGG the less I pay attention to them, honestly. A big difference between movies and boardgames is that it's (for the most part) a group activity . And to make matters even more inconsistent, whether a group will take to a game or not will also depend a lot on who actually teaches them the game and how that person goes about it.

> whether a group will take to a game or not will also depend a lot on who actually teaches them the game and how that person goes about it.

Definitely agree on this. I was teaching a few different people at different times how to play Wiz-War over the holidays (I had recently made my own copy from a printables PDF I found on the BGG site since it's not really for sale), and I definitely took different strategies with my twelve year old son than I did with other people that I was teaching, because I knew more or less how much they might put up with in being screwed over by the game (because a lot of the fun of that game is screwing people over or getting out of being screwed over), and how much I dawdles after I did so to give them opportunities to find a way out of their situation. That seemed to work well, I think the people I taught the game to enjoyed it, and I could definitely see how someone more interested in winning could give someone a really shitty first experience in that game.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#73

Post by Oddskar »

kgermino wrote: post #70
Oddskar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you probably play using your own house rules to make it palatable: the hallmark of an at best mediocre game.

No one I know that enjoys Monopoly (I don't know anyone who loves it) has significant house rules. It's a mediocre game by almost any metric but house rules almost universally make it worse, not better.

Maybe that's because everyone that's played any other boardgame made the last 10 years has abandoned monopoly completely since it's not a great game.

I also disagree that one cannot fix some of its many, many flaws with house rules. Remember that the spirit of the original rules was a game made as an anti-capitalist statement, not to be a fun experience.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#75

Post by secabeen »

brimble wrote: post #55
scrollaway wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here's a more developed (and spicier) take then. Larger board games are very often mere laundry lists of systems that can be found in many other board games. The longer games tend to have systems that MAKE the game long, rather than cause people to develop a strategy. One example is some mechanics forcing synchronous turns, or even worse, preventing you from preparing your turn in advance. Which gets even worse…

In defense of complex games: My favorite part of a game is discovering it. I'm in it for the easy "a-ha!" moments and as soon as it starts to look like a particular game is going to have to become a whole thing for me to keep getting those from it (by moving on to "competitive" levels of play, memorized strategies, et c.), I'm done with it. Complex games often throw enough variables in the mix to keep things interest…

> My favorite part of a game is discovering it.

Interesting. I feel similarly, but I would place my joy in exploration rather than discovery. I'm not interested in discovery, where I take only the rules/components and try to discover the best plays and strategies. I don't have the time or the inclination to endure the dead ends and plays of failed strategies. (Some people love that, they want to find the best plays themselves; not me.) I want a map, a guide, then my joy is in taking that map, and applying it to the game state I'm in.

Thus, I love reading strategy guides, and following instructions. I build Lego sets frequently, but I never build My Own Creations. For me, the fun is in execution. Thus, complex games give me more paths to walk, more levers to pull. Simple games get boring, and often end up in the deeply iterative analysis that you see in Chess/Go: if I do this, then they'll do that, so then I need to do this, etc. etc. etc. Not fun at all for me, and why I largely avoid most abstracts too.

In a related note, this is also why I ended up in SysAdmin, not Dev; I want to implement the awesome programs that other people make; I have little interest in creating something new myself.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#76

Post by munificent »

moate wrote: post #49
mlindner wrote: post #2

> Are heavy games really 'better' than 'light' games? To serious board game players, yes, more complex games are "better" because the simple games tend to have dozens of games with almost identical feel. If the game is complex there can be more variety. > But I don't have time to play games that are very complex and take many hours! And the authors personal biases heavily stilt things.

Just here to say, as someone who both worked for a gaming company, has designed games, and has a shelf FULL of things like Fury of Dracula, Root, and Mansions of Madness, I consider myself a serious board/table top gamer. Light games are great. Ever play "The Mind" or "Exploding Kittens" at a party? Super fun. Everything is personal biases. If you have the time to set up and play Gloomhaven, great! But many people do…

Candyland is a wonderful gaming experience for small children.

You are taking for granted that understanding how to follow game mechanics and taking turns are both acquired skills. It's very rewarding for children to learn those skills and see themselves apply them. The fact that there aren't interesting decisions to make in playing the game is secondary.

The kids are spending all of their mental energy making decisions to follow the game mechanics themselves instead of moving out of turn, jumping to the squares they want to land on, taking extra cards, etc. All that requires a lot more executive function and willpower than we realize because we're so practiced at it, but Candyland is a way for small kids to get that practice.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#77

Post by salamandersauce »

Oddskar wrote: post #61
mercutio2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny! My gamer friends love monopoly as a light warm up! A game with adults who know how to play takes ~45 minutes. Auctions are taught affairs, which is really the only decision point, but that’s why it’s such a fast play-through.

And you probably play using your own house rules to make it palatable: the hallmark of an at best mediocre game.

Most of the popular house rules make it worse like $50 on Free Parking or allowing people to build houses when the supply is empty and not having auctions. It certainly has a big luck component compared to more modern games but it's really not that bad.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#78

Post by adamrezich »

scrollaway wrote: post #15
mlindner wrote: post #2

> Are heavy games really 'better' than 'light' games? To serious board game players, yes, more complex games are "better" because the simple games tend to have dozens of games with almost identical feel. If the game is complex there can be more variety. > But I don't have time to play games that are very complex and take many hours! And the authors personal biases heavily stilt things.

This is like saying bigger books are better because more pages = more complexity = more interesting plot. You must be a big fan of the dictionary. I've found the best board games are often the simplest ones. 2-player vanilla Splendor is one of my favourites and all it takes to play is a deck of cards and a stack of tokens. When both players have a good level, the depth of strategy of that game is crazy good. And unli…

more complexity in a board game means a larger possibility space which allows for (but does not necessarily 100% correlate with) increased replayability and more interesting strategy development, both things that seasoned board game players (of which I am not one, but I have friends who are) tend to highly value.

the complexity of a board game is in no way comparable to the length of linear media, aside from the amount of one's own lifetime one has the possibility of investing in the work before being satisfied with no longer engaging with.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#79

Post by mbg721 »

munificent wrote: post #76
moate wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just here to say, as someone who both worked for a gaming company, has designed games, and has a shelf FULL of things like Fury of Dracula, Root, and Mansions of Madness, I consider myself a serious board/table top gamer. Light games are great. Ever play "The Mind" or "Exploding Kittens" at a party? Super fun. Everything is personal biases. If you have the time to set up and play Gloomhaven, great! But many people do…

Candyland is a wonderful gaming experience for small children. You are taking for granted that understanding how to follow game mechanics and taking turns are both acquired skills. It's very rewarding for children to learn those skills and see themselves apply them. The fact that there aren't interesting decisions to make in playing the game is secondary. The kids are spending all of their mental energy making decisi…

I think, more specifically, Candyland is even tailored for kids who are old enough to match colors but can't count dice pips yet. For kids a little bit older, there's some game where you roll dice and move cherries into a basket. I wouldn't introduce Terra Mystica until kindergarten, first-grade at the earliest.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#80

Post by brimble »

secabeen wrote: post #75
brimble wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of complex games: My favorite part of a game is discovering it. I'm in it for the easy "a-ha!" moments and as soon as it starts to look like a particular game is going to have to become a whole thing for me to keep getting those from it (by moving on to "competitive" levels of play, memorized strategies, et c.), I'm done with it. Complex games often throw enough variables in the mix to keep things interest…

> My favorite part of a game is discovering it. Interesting. I feel similarly, but I would place my joy in exploration rather than discovery. I'm not interested in discovery, where I take only the rules/components and try to discover the best plays and strategies. I don't have the time or the inclination to endure the dead ends and plays of failed strategies. (Some people love that, they want to find the best plays t…

Yeah, my joy from games comes in figuring things out, not in recognizing and applying something I picked up elsewhere. Now, you can keep figuring things out even in very deep games, but it requires ongoing study and effort and meanwhile you'll be losing to people who've memorized a whole bunch and aren't (against you, at least) having to figure out anything new at all—rather than do all that, I just play a different game when things get to that point :-)

I play games to feel "clever", not to feel "smart" (for values of smart like "ah ha, I happen to have read and memorized a counter to this opening that you don't know, so now I will crush you"), and continuing to feel clever with a deep game requires more commitment than I care to give to them, personally.

... this is probably a holdover from painfully-typical bad attitudes developed during a "gifted" childhood. It took me a very long time to stop seeing—if only subconsciously—studying as something adjacent to cheating, like "yeah you got an A but you had to study, so, that hardly counts". Looks very dumb written down like that, but it was the rut my brain got stuck in for a long while without my even realizing it. However, in the specific case of games, I haven't bothered to try to work past it, because I'm still having a good time with my approach, and I really do not want to get serious enough about any game that studying & focused, non-play practice becomes necessary to keep getting "I did a clever thing" dopamine hits.

Weirdly, this "preparation is akin to cheating, and at the very least a sign that you have already failed" attitude didn't transfer over into sports, where I was totally fine with (and loved, actually) practice and drilling.

> Thus, I love reading strategy guides, and following instructions. I build Lego sets frequently, but I never build My Own Creations.

Oddly enough, though, that's me too. I had lots of Legos as a kid but rarely built my own thing, usually building from instructions, and then if I did anything else it was typically combining, re-theming, or adding on to, instruction-built sets.

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