Tabletop/board games

[Lochton]

You're kidding right?
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...-games-revival

This is a great day and age for board games.

*****
Geez where do I start for great board games?

Pandemic - Any version. I finally manged to win a game of Rising Tide on Friday.
Gloomhaven - Probably the most diabolically detailed dungeon delving legacy game you're likely to find. Game play requires a different state of mind than most comparable games.
Spirit Island - Deadly island spirits have to drive away the evil Colonizers!
Tiny Epic... by Gamelyn Games - A variety of small, inexpensive games but I've yet to find one I didn't like.
Scythe - A board control game in an interesting Steampunk setting. Unlike similar games its not all about military conquest.
Agricola - Worker placement game. As seen on Orphan Black! Don't cheat like Rachel.
Lords of Waterdeep - Another worker placement game based on DnD's Forgotten Realms campaign.

Nope. Ain't kidding you.

[Thagrynor]

My long-time "white whale" boardgame I finally snagged a copy of when it was republished is Cosmic Encounter. No two games are going to be the same. The basic concept is simple; each player is an alien race, and you're trying to establish colonies on planets, everyone has 5 planets in their system. You need (I think) 5 different colonies to win. The "combat" to resolve invasions is simple.

But where it gets complex is that you negotiate alliances with other players, for both attack and defense. And further, every alien race is pulled from a deck of race cards, and every single one has a special rule, essentially a way to "cheat". The relatively low victory condition means games are frenetic after the first few moves. It's not as insanely complex as Diplomacy, but it shares some of that simplicity of rules combined with complexity of negotiation.

Cosmic Encounter is a great game. I love the diplomacy/negotiations needed to not get wiped off the table early on. It is both fun and frustrating when that alliance you had suddenly turns on you because you are advancing too much or too difficult to deal with otherwise. The fact that the rules are fairly simple and straight forward without the unneeded burden of tables or anything like that is just great. While complex games are fun, I think the social aspect of games that don't require "player aides" in the form of turn order progression cards or tables for outcomes or anything make them a lot more fun to play regularly.

I also enjoy some other smaller, "filler" games. If you enjoy some randomness with simple rules and want a fairly straight forward, short(ish) game, some fun ones include:
- Sagrada (you are rolling dice to fill your board to create a stained glass window in La Sagrada Familia cathedral)
- Noch Mal! (roll dice to fill a colored grid by literally just checking off squares based on the color and number rolled)
- Ganz Schon Clever (roll dice and fill in different grids to score points, with lots of different scoring options)
- Roll Player (this is basically rolling dice and "slotting" them into your player board to effectively "build" an RPG character, with different races/classes/origins/alignment/etc to help define your goals for scoring and make each player different).

And then you have games like the Munchkin series which are great fun, especially since you can find so many different themes, including branded themes, like Rick and Morty or Star Trek or whatever. Basically a dungeon diver without too much "overhead" in terms of rules. Basically, everything is on the cards, and it has player negotiation as well.

Gloomhaven is a great game, but man is it expensive and deep. I've heard of campaigns spanning months with regular play. And a $150-200 price tag is a bit rough on the wallet.

Still trying to find a regular gaming group though. So I tend to also love games that have solo play options.

If you enjoy solo games, Hostage Negotiator is a lot of fun. It is strictly solo play, and is pseudo-deck building. You effectively "deck build" to gain conversation options as you work as a hostage negotiator, trying to save a bunch of hostages from a criminal. It is pretty cool.

I try to stay away from AmeriTrash games like Monopoly and such, as they don't seem to offer a ton of depth.

[cubby]

Lately got into tabletop games and having a lot of fun with a few friends. Used to play D&D a long time ago but then took a maybe 12-13 years break.
I bought Mansions of Madness and Eldritch Horror. MoM is quite easy to get into and really fun to play even solo. It's also cool that the smartphone/computer app does a lot of work for you, and miniatures are fun to have.
I heard only good things about EH but damn it takes time to learn. I'm also looking to get Gloomhaven since it seems to be one of the best tabletop games but can't find it anywhere for a normal price. I'm also eyeing Massive Darkness because it's supposedly tabletop Diablo.

There must be a bunch of people here who play? What is your favorite tabletop game?

We got into more complicated board games several years ago. One of my favorites is Caverna.

Buddy of mine got Gloomhaven, set it all up, even got the custom box holder (and put that together, which took forever), and then could never get his family to play out the 45-60 min scenarios. The game looked simply amazing.

He even had the removable stickers so he could replay it if he wanted.

[schwank05]

Magic The gathering, I have all my old deck. Most are illegal in all forms of Tournament play today. We had a Rule the you could not play any cards Newer than Apocalypse. I started playing when the Invasion set released, but most of my cards are from the Urza's Legacy, Dynasty, and Saga era. I just went on Ebay back then and bought huge 5000+ card lots and then built my decks from them. Id love to find people to play with again and play my old decks.

[Pattiecakes]

I played a weekly session of Gloomhaven for about 8 months with 3 friends. Loved the class and combat system. Great Game!
I played Eldritch Horror once and it did not give a good first impression. I need to give it a couple more sessions to really decide.
My Gloomhaven group is now playing Kingdom Death: Monster. I prefer the combat in Gloomhaven as I really hate relying on dice. The town "phase" and managing a colony is really neat. The monsters are fantastic but we're playing with them unpainted so the wow factor is diminished.

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 - Loved every session as a group of 4. Really cool co-op game.
Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 - Same group as season 1 and we quit after 4 sessions (of 12). The games we lost (or won) during Season 1 always felt close. A turn or a card draw either way and the outcome would be different. Season 2 however felt like you needed the perfect luck to even get close. When we started our last session we looked at the board and knew we were losing before the first person acted.

[Ivanstone]

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 - Loved every session as a group of 4. Really cool co-op game.
Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 - Same group as season 1 and we quit after 4 sessions (of 12). The games we lost (or won) during Season 1 always felt close. A turn or a card draw either way and the outcome would be different. Season 2 however felt like you needed the perfect luck to even get close. When we started our last session we looked at the board and knew we were losing before the first person acted.

I'm not getting the same impression from S2. I think we're in June right now. Thing about S1/2 is that you want to lose sometimes and managing your losses is important. One thing that's shared between S2 and Rising Tide is that there are multiples of the same location in each deck. Its something that you have to be mentally prepared for at all times.

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Nope. Ain't kidding you.

No, its a great time for gaming. Ten years ago there was no board game cafes or similar where I live. Now there are multiples plus gaming clubs and game stores in town try to offer in store gaming during open hours.

[Mehrunes]

Plenty of great games have already been named, so I'll give credit to one of my favorites that hasn't been yet. Eclipse. Simply amazing.

Monopoly is a terrible game. It was originally designed to show people why capitalism is awful. That people get frustrated and angry and ragequit and the only person enjoying themselves is the guy with all the property, that's the point.

So true. It has like 4.5 rating on BGG. It's just a mess, design-wise. Roll to move is already an antiquated mechanic and there's even more RNG aside from that without that many player tools to alleviate it. Combine that with how long it is and you get situations where you know you're going to lose no matter what, but the game still lasts for hours. Plus it has player elimination, which results in eliminated player sitting there, fiddling their thumbs for the aforementioned hours.

Gloomhaven is a great game, but man is it expensive and deep. I've heard of campaigns spanning months with regular play. And a $150-200 price tag is a bit rough on the wallet.

Gloomhaven is by no means cheap for a game, but Kingdom Death: Monster mentioned by @Pattiecakes blows it out of the water in that department. Which is a shame since it looks intriguing as hell.

I try to stay away from AmeriTrash games like Monopoly and such, as they don't seem to offer a ton of depth.

Well, ameritrash is rather broad. Twilight Imperium is ameritrash and it'd be hard for anyone to say with a straight face it doesn't offer a ton of depth.

Buddy of mine got Gloomhaven, set it all up, even got the custom box holder (and put that together, which took forever), and then could never get his family to play out the 45-60 min scenarios. The game looked simply amazing.

He even had the removable stickers so he could replay it if he wanted.

It can still be played solo though.

[Lochton]

No, its a great time for gaming. Ten years ago there was no board game cafes or similar where I live. Now there are multiples plus gaming clubs and game stores in town try to offer in store gaming during open hours.

10 years ago, I knew more boardgame cafés than now.

[jackofwind]

Lately got into tabletop games and having a lot of fun with a few friends. Used to play D&D a long time ago but then took a maybe 12-13 years break.
I bought Mansions of Madness and Eldritch Horror. MoM is quite easy to get into and really fun to play even solo. It's also cool that the smartphone/computer app does a lot of work for you, and miniatures are fun to have.
I heard only good things about EH but damn it takes time to learn. I'm also looking to get Gloomhaven since it seems to be one of the best tabletop games but can't find it anywhere for a normal price. I'm also eyeing Massive Darkness because it's supposedly tabletop Diablo.

There must be a bunch of people here who play? What is your favorite tabletop game?

Warhammer Quest is a much-loved classic. The new boxed iterations (Silver Tower/Shadows over Hammerhal) have nice sculpts and are pretty decent self-contained campaigns, and there is a lot of material available for creating new custom campaigns as well. When we're not playing D&D 5e my group mostly plays this.

Shadows of Brimstone is another decent crawler, set in more of a Cthulu-meets-Old-West world. Sculpts are meh, but not everything can be GW quality.

I have friends who love Kingdom Death but I really dislike the gameplay. Would love to paint some of the sculpts though.

For more casual game nights we'll throw down a game of Arkham Horror or two, and Pandemic is a fun fast game for small groups with tons of addons. No idea if people remember this game but I also just came across a perfect condition copy of Key to the Kingdom that I'm pretty stoked to bust out at our next game night. It's essentially HeroQuest-lite (it's for kids) but the nostalgia will be real!

IG Thin_your_paints if you're interested. I also have a thread of painted minis on MMO-C but it's not a great forum for that sort of thing.

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Kingdom Death: Monster mentioned by @Pattiecakes blows it out of the water in that department. Which is a shame since it looks intriguing as hell.

KD:M has beautiful sculpts but honestly the game itself is pretty underwhelming IMO.

[Strawberry]

I'm gaming with people who don't have time for maybe more than 3h game sessions, max 4. I wish I knew people who could just sit and play for 12 hours. Perhaps I should join some community.

[Piglord]

I love board games, and even regular card games. Sadly, it seems I was born too late. No one really seems interested in either these days. I get to play cards with my grandparents once a month when I visit them.

I'm in the same boat. My favorite card game is cribbage. It's been so long since I've gotten to play I don't even remember how anymore.

[Krastyn]

Lately got into tabletop games and having a lot of fun with a few friends. Used to play D&D a long time ago but then took a maybe 12-13 years break.
I bought Mansions of Madness and Eldritch Horror. MoM is quite easy to get into and really fun to play even solo. It's also cool that the smartphone/computer app does a lot of work for you, and miniatures are fun to have.
I heard only good things about EH but damn it takes time to learn. I'm also looking to get Gloomhaven since it seems to be one of the best tabletop games but can't find it anywhere for a normal price. I'm also eyeing Massive Darkness because it's supposedly tabletop Diablo.

There must be a bunch of people here who play? What is your favorite tabletop game?

There is such a huge variety of games, it really comes down to the style / size / preferences of your group. They all effect what what kind of game will be "good". I have few different groups that board game together, and each one tends to gravitate towards different types. One favors small co-op games, one is medium sized a bit of everything, and then one is the larger party / team games.

Mansions of Madness is a good easy to learn co-op game. Eldritch Horror (and Arkham Horror, the original not the card version) are both good as well but are a lot heavier in rules.

Similar to those I would also recommend Betrayal at House on the Hill, which has a similar explore feel of MoM, but one person will end up being the bad guy (randomly chosen in the middle of the game).

I love Gloomhaven. Do not let the price point deter you. To play a full campaign, you're looking at probably 40-50 missions depending on how much you side quest. Add in that you won't finish each mission the first time, and some missions can take a bit, you're probably looking at 100-150 hours for a campaign. Not a bad investment of $200 for 2-4 people.

Cosmic Encounters as mentioned is also a good larger group game, as is Cuthroat Caverns and Shadow Hunters. Only drawback to Cosmic is that it suffers the same problem as Munchkin. Things tend to stagnate when someone approaches the win condition.

Mysterium gets a lot of play. One person is a ghost who is trying to get each player to solve a murder (person, place, weapon), by handing out cards with artwork on them. Also recommend Dixit.

Dead of Winter - Co-op zombie survival game, with the chance of a traitor

Battlestar Galactica - Hidden traitor mechanic, very heavy ruleset, takes a long time for a game.

Even branching off the true boardgame / tabletop route, you could go with something on Steam like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, or a few of the Jackbox Party Packs. The Jackbox games get a lot of play across all of my gaming groups, and even family events like Thanksgiving. Drawful, Fibbage, Murder Trivia Party, You Don't Know Jack. Jackbox Party Pack 5 comes out on Wednesday.

Aside from the above:
What is the size of your group?
Is there a preferred style of game? (Co-op, semi-co-op, competitive)
Is there a preferred type of game? (deck building, city building, legacy, etc)

That would help narrow down the suggestions.

[Thagrynor]

Gloomhaven is by no means cheap for a game, but Kingdom Death: Monster mentioned by @Pattiecakes blows it out of the water in that department. Which is a shame since it looks intriguing as hell.




Well, ameritrash is rather broad. Twilight Imperium is ameritrash and it'd be hard for anyone to say with a straight face it doesn't offer a ton of depth.

Oh, by no means is Gloomhaven the most expensive game out there, but it is still rough on the wallet. But from everything I hear, it is definitely worth the money.

As far as the Ameritrash, a game like Twilight Imperium isn't Ameritrash though. Plenty of US games aren't Ameritrash. Ameritrash tends to refer (at least, as far as I am aware) as the very shallow games produced by companies like Milton Bradley and Hasbro that offer little in the way of gameplay aside from rolling a dice/spinning a spinner and then moving your piece and doing whatever it says. This would be games like Monopoly, Sorry, Game of Life, Candy Land, etc. Even games like Risk or Stratego aren't really Ameritrash, as they require a lot of strategy, despite not really having that much "depth", persay.

So that is what I was referring to when I said I stay away from Ameritrash. I need some sort of actual player decision and strategy for games to really be worth playing. Otherwise, you might as well be playing a little kid's game.

[FurryRedVixen]

Sadly, Tabletop games aren't much welcomed in society anymore. Once, you used to be able to sit at a café to find people to play with. Not anymore.

That is very much untrue good sir. It really depends on where your located and if you have any good brick and mortar stores. Typically the type of stores that do Magic the Gathering and table top war games like 40k AoS and Bolt Action.

These stores are great places to find friends, do board games and have fun. Heck my local store Meta Games unlimited, tends to have large amounts of people every thursday and sunday for board games, DnD, you name it. Large face book groups too.

They even have swap meets at times trading old board games and such. its super fun!

My favorite board games are 40k (Nids) and then some of the other board like games like Red Dragon Inn, Exploding Kittens, Bears vs Babies. Its really how you social network.

[Lochton]

That is very much untrue good sir. It really depends on where your located and if you have any good brick and mortar stores. Typically the type of stores that do Magic the Gathering and table top war games like 40k AoS and Bolt Action.

These stores are great places to find friends, do board games and have fun. Heck my local store Meta Games unlimited, tends to have large amounts of people every thursday and sunday for board games, DnD, you name it. Large face book groups too.

They even have swap meets at times trading old board games and such. its super fun!

My favorite board games are 40k (Nids) and then some of the other board like games like Red Dragon Inn, Exploding Kittens, Bears vs Babies. Its really how you social network.

Well, my only reference is that what I once was able to find a lot of, I don't anymore.

[FurryRedVixen]

Well, my only reference is that what I once was able to find a lot of, I don't anymore.

i would bet there maybe a few around. May not be walkin distance but a nice 20-40 minute drive mayhaps.

[Lochton]

i would bet there maybe a few around. May not be walkin distance but a nice 20-40 minute drive mayhaps.

20-40 depends on your preferences. The one I used to enjoy doesn't exist, the next one is like, 1½ hour away.

[Nihilist74]

Sounds like fun especially the massive darkness. I would not really want to bother with all the trouble of going to someone's house or having them come to mine to play these types of games. I would rather just play computer games. I would like to see some Lovecraftian mythos games with some dark ages like settings.

[FurryRedVixen]

I always wanted to play Scythe, then there is this awesome game about giant robots recovering items from buildings, forgot the name but it looks awesome.

[Ivanstone]

Well, ameritrash is rather broad. Twilight Imperium is ameritrash and it'd be hard for anyone to say with a straight face it doesn't offer a ton of depth.

Not sure I'd consider Twilight Imperium to be Ameritrash. Hell, I don't consider Monopoly to be Ameritrash although whatever licensed propety USopoly tries to throw on it certainly is.

There's certainly good licensed proprety games out there I like. Game of Thrones or Battlestar Galactica come to mind. FFG usually did a good job of putting game before property.