I’ve never played Arkham, but from what I understand, the rules with all expansions becomes a bit much to manage. I’m not sure though if a video game adaption would work in its favour or not. On one side, the computer handles all the rules. On the other, too many rules might befuddle a player as to why they can or can not do a particular action.
Let us not forget though that FFG were pretty generous with the Descent 2nd edition app, and I would be hopeful they do more like that, including fleshing out the Descent app some more.
Haaaaaave ya played Through the Ages? That’s why it basically obsoletes the tabletop version of the game. It manages to automate all the fiddly accounting, rules, and other tiny rules that come into play.
So I recently picked up the Legacy of Dragonholt from FFG and am really enjoying it. It’s basically just an open world choose your own adventure suitably overproduced in calssic FFG style.
I sat and played the first few “encounters” today and it really is well done. The open world nature leads a lot of flexability in how you proceed, and try to unravel the mystery. It is really well done and while not technically a “game” it is a fun experience. To me it seems a well written story, but I go in for schlocky stuff like the Dtagonlance Chronicles and Forgotten Realms books.
My only real lament is that I wish they had set the thing in Arkham Horror not Terrinoth. Terrinoth is so generic it seems kinda pathetic that FFG is trying to turn it into a thing. The format of this thing just screams Lovcraftian Horor Mystery, and given it’s solo nature I think it’s a perfect fit for that sort of suspense.
I know they have developed this thing as a branded system (Oracle) so hopefully we will see another one set in Arkham.
I’ve got Pathfinder (both app and physical) and I have to say that the rules for that game are easy. The benefit of the app is less shuffling, so that makes it a win for me. Downside to the app is Rise of the Runelords only, recently discussed as a weak campaign (agreed) and inability to bring in characters from other decks.
I’ve yet to try Through the Ages though. It is on my steam wishlist but I’m trying to be good with money this year and see how much I can save. I certainly see your point nonetheless, I guess it all comes down to how well the application shows what can and can not be done.
I am not quite sure that Arkham Horror or even a game like Through the Ages is really obsoleted by a digital counterpart. I am not getting rid of my physical copy of Twilight Struggle even through I play the digital version is played far more often. I really don’t think GMT regrets it either. If Arkham were out in an entirely digital form I would probably just gain more comfort and familiarity with the game in general and may even be more likely to get the game to the physical table. If Fantasy Flight wants to get me in to the Xwing or Armada crack I have to be honest and say a PC game of those might spur that on to. I don’t get the impression that the digital versions steal sales if anything they build interest.
Yeah the guy who brought it backed it via Kickstarter based on comparisons to Terra Magica. I had never played that either so no clue how apt the comparison
There kids are, in an unofficial capacity anyhow. There are two main branches of it. One is a module for Vassal, the other a stand-alone thing called Fly Casual.
However both try to justify their legality by fully implementing things like card text or points. So in order to use them you require a certain level of familiarity with the systems. I.e. you’d have to do research to build a legal squad and understand all their abilities since they are not defined in the virtual versions.
There exists a play community for them, one that is largely driven by tournament* players looking to practice and theory craft squads.
*not just tournament champs, but the community for them tends to be a bit more competitive than you would get at a FLGS, since it tends to be mostly people who play in prize sponsored events
The basic rules? Sure, absolutely. Grab some dice, beat the number, chuck away.
But the different rules governing which modifiers come into effect create all kinds of special and significant need for interpreted rules, enough so that Selinker and Paizo spent a whole lotta time after the release of Rise of the Runelords passing down various canon rules interpretations. Once you’re into the fourth scenario box, there are typically all kinds of specialized rules to keep track of for specific locations, specific henchmen and bosses, specific scenarios, etc. And frankly, the app makes those intricate special-case rules permutations a snap, in much the way it could for the tacked-on expansions and new rules in a game like AH or Eldritch Horror.
I’m really bummed that it seems no further adventures are coming out for the Pathfinder app. I was really looking forward to burning through the whole game system.
Has that been announced? If not, it took ages to get this one in full and Obsidian does have other projects underway, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still coming but more time consuming than you might expect.
The problem with Arkham’s expansions is less that they introduce rules overload (they don’t really add much in the way of new rules, if I recall, although the rules for the main game are a shining example of how not to write a rulebook), and more that they introduce ideas and mechanics that are expressed primarily through cards that all shuffle into existing decks. (Also the addon boards are bad.) So if you use enough expansions at once, you won’t hit enough of those cards to really fire any given mechanic.
IMO they’re similar but EotS is a better design. Pacific war has more of the usual pacific wargame conceits, however, whereas EotS is a strategic game through and through and it has a little bit less ‘flavor’.
The big thing is, Pacific War’s grand campaign is a kludge while EotS’s grand campaign is excellent.
This is especially true for the mythos deck. I think the myskatonic horror expansion was an attempt to smooth that out, though I never ended up getting that so I’m not sure how it worked. We just created a house rule where we had two mythos decks (expansion and base) and you would roll a die to see which you drew from.
Yeah, Miskatonic was supposed to be a patch for that… by adding more cards with those mechanics. I never played with it (I don’t even own a copy of Arkham as by the time I was building my collection a complete Arkham set would have been hugely expensive but Eldritch was just coming out), but I can’t imagine that was sufficient to make an all expansion game work well.
I actually disagree. EotS may be a better “design” in some theoretical design way (more elegant, more “Euro-feely”) but Pacific War feels more like the Pacific theater and more like an actual wargame. In order to have a campaign that holds together, it abstracts too much and turns into a hybrid. Clever, but not so much a wargame.
If you feel the need to play an entire campaign of the Pacific theater from beginning to end, you shouldn’t be playing either of these games, anyway. You should be playing Fire in the Sky.
There’s definitely a school of thought that judges quality of design by mechanical elegance and not by the consequences of the design decisions on the thematic and narrative experience as a whole (cough Gloomhaven cough). I loathe looking at games just by looking at how well the mechanics grease together.
But I am curious as to what is your definition of wargame. That feels weird to me (EotS, having only read the rules since it’s impossible to find, does feel to me pretty much like a wargame). Do you consider COIN games (for example, or other unconventional designs) as wargames?
There is something that is almost-not-but-maybe-in-the-end-just-barely effable about a wargame that I know when I play it. EotS plays like a very elegant hybrid that leaves me impressed but not quite satisfied. Pacific War makes me feel like every move is a “yeah, this is the freaking shizzle” moment. The hard numbers, the wild die rolls, the very direct systemic representation all satisfy me in a way that more abstract designs don’t.
I don’t know what you mean by unconventional designs, so I can’t answer that part of your question. As for COIN, the answer is “probably not.”
I’d love to discuss this more in the Grognard Wargamer thread, with the caveat that I’m traveling and my responses tended to be brief and under nuanced when typing into my phone.
I’ve long been thinking about selling my Arkham Horror collection that I haven’t touched since Eldritch came out. It has every expansion except Miskatonic and the 2nd Dark Pharaoh one.
Any ideas if that would net any decent price or does no one care in a post-Eldritch world?
You could try a math trade on BGG. Honestly, I’ve debated getting Eldritch Horror, except that I have enough Arkham Horror stuff it’s a bit painful to buy into a new game that’s so similar.
I suspect AH wouldn’t fetch much these days, but it’s worth a shot. My impression is that used boardgames don’t really retain much value, but I could be wrong.
