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Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

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Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#91

Post by matthiaswh »

kqr wrote: post #24

If only playing board games didn't require colocating several friends for a non-trivial span of time... Everyone around me (including myself!) is busy with work, children, partner, running their household, and exercising. How do people do it?

Board Game Arena in turn-based mode.

I have been playing multiple games daily non-stop for 6 years now with a consistent but sometimes shifting group of local friends.

We still play live either virtually or in-person at times, but the async games never end. Playing live on BGA still reduces the game time by as much as 50% for more complex games since it handles setup, teardown, and scoring.

Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#92

Post by allturtles »

thom wrote: post #29

I think you should play modern board games, but can we agree that there are both good and also heinously bad lessons to learn from them? Far too many board games want to be computer games, and seem to think it's trivial to have 20 different piles of crap to set up at the start, and then a dozen different pieces of state to track in your little corner of the table during what will inevitably be a complicated five-phas…

I think the lesson to learn from this is that different people are different?

While most people are repulsed by the complexity of extremely heavy games, others will luxriate in them. There is a whole 40-year-old community built around Advanced Squad Leader, a game with rules so complicated that there's a 135-page tutorial to teach the Starter Kit version of the game [0]!

The board game industry creates many very mainstream games with wide popularity, and many games across a large number of niches that each have their own narrow appeal.

I think this is great!

[0]: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/40482/jay-richardsons-asl...

Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#93

Post by kqr »

dbatten wrote: post #49
kqr wrote: post #24

If only playing board games didn't require colocating several friends for a non-trivial span of time... Everyone around me (including myself!) is busy with work, children, partner, running their household, and exercising. How do people do it?

I play mostly with the aforementioned wife and kids! We were shocked by how early our kids could pick up board games, including many of the ones mentioned in this article. Our 2 oldest kids were playing Ticket to Ride and Carcassone well enough to beat us form time to time at 3 and 4 years old. Now that they're a little older, slightly more complicated games like Catan and Flamecraft are on the table!

Ah. My wife isn't very interested and my children are just at the age where they can accept a slightly more complicated snakes and ladders[1] but they would not be able to do anything meaningful in Ticket to Ride yet. Looking forward to the day!

[1]: https://entropicthoughts.com/snakes-and-ladders

Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#94

Post by pkal »

allturtles wrote: post #92
thom wrote: post #29

I think you should play modern board games, but can we agree that there are both good and also heinously bad lessons to learn from them? Far too many board games want to be computer games, and seem to think it's trivial to have 20 different piles of crap to set up at the start, and then a dozen different pieces of state to track in your little corner of the table during what will inevitably be a complicated five-phas…

I think the lesson to learn from this is that different people are different? While most people are repulsed by the complexity of extremely heavy games, others will luxriate in them. There is a whole 40-year-old community built around Advanced Squad Leader, a game with rules so complicated that there's a 135-page tutorial to teach the Starter Kit version of the game [0]! The board game industry creates many very main…

The article doesn't sell it that way. "You should play modern board games if ..." would be a different claim. The premise

> They provide interesting puzzles to solve, and you work in a technical role - some part of your brain must find that appealing

is something I do not relate to at all. Almost every time I am in a situation where I play board games, my intuition is to think about how you solve the game so that one side always wins or break the rules so that everyone loses, but almost never am I actually interested in investing the energy to get invested in the game itself, let alone the rules.

Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#95

Post by GodelNumbering »

ultratalk wrote: post #85
GodelNumbering wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same social deduction genre, but the possible game states and the permutations of possible interactions are so massive that it stays interesting even when playing with the same group for years. It rewards both good calculation and good social reading skills, along with good bluffing of course.

Interesting. Could you give some examples as to how? I want to see how well this could work out in my friend circle, who seem to be getting bored after years of mafia-ing.

https://wiki.bloodontheclocktower.com is a great resource!

Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#96

Post by allturtles »

pkal wrote: post #94
allturtles wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the lesson to learn from this is that different people are different? While most people are repulsed by the complexity of extremely heavy games, others will luxriate in them. There is a whole 40-year-old community built around Advanced Squad Leader, a game with rules so complicated that there's a 135-page tutorial to teach the Starter Kit version of the game [0]! The board game industry creates many very main…

The article doesn't sell it that way. "You should play modern board games if ..." would be a different claim. The premise > They provide interesting puzzles to solve, and you work in a technical role - some part of your brain must find that appealing is something I do not relate to at all. Almost every time I am in a situation where I play board games, my intuition is to think about how you solve the game so that one…

> he article doesn't sell it that way. "You should play modern board games if ..." would be a different claim.

Indeed, but neither does the article try say you should play games with "20 different piles of crap to set up at the start, and then a dozen different pieces of state to track in your little corner of the table during what will inevitably be a complicated five-phased turn", which is the comment I was responding to. It doesn't actually recommend any specific games at all, but those types of games are really a small subset of modern board games (of the games mentioned in the article, I think only Twilight Imperium and maybe Labyrinth would qualify).

> is something I do not relate to at all. Almost every time I am in a situation where I play board games, my intuition is to think about how you solve the game so that one side always wins or break the rules so that everyone loses, but almost never am I actually interested in investing the energy to get invested in the game itself, let alone the rules.

Okay, great, you have learned that board games aren't for you. This article is aimed at people who haven't tried modern board games: "I chose to introduce them to the world of modern board games in an attempt to encourage some of them to give them a go."

Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#97

Post by robot_jesus »

Taikonerd wrote: post #83
robot_jesus wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree 100%. This hobby jumped the shark probably 5-10 years ago. Thanks to crowdfunding, there are deluxe editions of games all the time being announced for $400–500. Games ship with "6 expansions in box" which sounds great and like a ton of replayable content, until you realize that they're poorly playtested, lack balance, and add a confounding (and sometimes contradictory) number of rules. As you noted, games come…

> Games ship with "6 expansions in box" which sounds great [...] until you realize that they're poorly playtested, lack balance, and add a confounding (and sometimes contradictory) number of rules. Hot take: I have never played an expansion that I liked more than the base game.

I won't argue that. There are a handful that I think improve the experience (some of the early Carcassonne ones, for example) but they are by far the exception rather than the rule.

Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#98

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

faizshah wrote: post #90
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren’t finding Arcs or Root “deep” or competitive enough you’re probably playing it wrong. Both have war game elements and a lot of subtle shenanigans you can play. If you’re pure euro gamers but need a bit more interaction maybe try Brass Birmingham, Food Chain Magnate, 1846, City of the Big Shoulders, Inis, Kemet.

The problem we had with Arcs (and Root) is that we didn’t find the strategy as deep as Dune Imperium. If you think about Dune Imperium, when you make a turn, and even between turns, you are constantly considering reveal power vs card powers vs war power vs resources, and you are making long term strategic decisions vs short term tactical ones vs deck building vs even the order of operations within a turn and round. E…

I’ve played all those games And I understand why you’re saying what you’re saying.

The war games aspects of Root and Arcs are kinda polarising and there’s definitely a certain mind set required. Dune imperium is a lot more straight forward in that it’s clear what needs to happen and how you might do it.

Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#99

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

seany wrote: post #80
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue we’re past the peak though. These days far too many board games are designed to appeal on Kickstarter with needless plastic minis and content. All that time and effort could have gone to play testing and improving the game but instead you get 2kg of plastic that doesn’t improve the game in anyway, increasing costs, and day one expansions or bonus content that’s often mediocre. For every truely innovative ga…

If you wander around the gencon halls this seems less true than people think. The number of innovative things or even kids ish games that are actually pretty interesting for all is _expansive_. The smaller stuff just doesn't get all the marketing splash. I came back from last year with a few things but one of the hits was a physical area control game with just cards. The 2 play version is a pack of cards.

That’s even worse then. I’ve never bothered to go to cons. But this means that almost none of the games that deserve attention get any air time.

Re: Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

#100

Post by seany »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #99
seany wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wander around the gencon halls this seems less true than people think. The number of innovative things or even kids ish games that are actually pretty interesting for all is _expansive_. The smaller stuff just doesn't get all the marketing splash. I came back from last year with a few things but one of the hits was a physical area control game with just cards. The 2 play version is a pack of cards.

That’s even worse then. I’ve never bothered to go to cons. But this means that almost none of the games that deserve attention get any air time.

In theory BGG should help here, but I agree there are discoverability issues. Not sure what a better plan would be though, the margins on some of the small games are not that great. Outside of working on distribution deals with big stores, going to cons with a booth and word of mouth ends up being the main way...
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