Inspectigater, read Bahimiron’s post again. Inspectigate it, if you will. He said there’s often a DM, he didn’t say that was a requirement. Arkham would be my suggestion as well, it’s great stuff and hits all of the other things you’re looking for, B. Besides, being the DM is boring, Arkham lets everyone be on the fun team.
Nephrinn
3462
A friend and I have had a lot of fun with Runebound. The problems with it are that there are a wallet-nuking number of expansions, and downtime is immense and sucky with more than two people. For an adventure game where you can go from being a miserable weenie to killing the Malicious McGuffin Monster in a few hours, though, I think it’s a blast. Plus, there’s no need for a dungeon master.
Agree with everything you say, but I’d highly recommend getting Mists of Zanaga as it improves on the formula a lot, particularly with pacing and upping the difficulty level quite dramatically.
A more recent game I really like is Tomb. There are dozens (and dozens and dozens) of pre-made characters that you recruit into a party before raiding a crpyt and trying to get more loot than your opponent. There are also a lot of ways to screw with said opponent. The base game is great, the standalone expansion is better, and you can combine them both into some mega-greatness. This game won’t work at all with a lot of groups because it’s too random and you can get some really broken combos, so check the reviews closely to see if it’s up your alley.
Yeah, Tomb goes down as being one of the worst games I’ve ever played. The rules were absolute garbage and it plays more like DungeonQuest than Descent in that it encourages a press-your-luck style of play and that dying a lot is to be expected. I also found that there was way too much going on as you have to manage each character (up to 5 or so per party), each character’s items, each character’s spells, each character’s skills, and then if that isn’t enough, the monsters and their spells and what not.
Getting farther afield, Duel of Ages rocks. Each player has a team of characters culled from throughout history (and the future) who equip themselves with all manner of ridiculous items and try to complete a number of different goals, respawning when they die. Ugly, but an absolute blast. A new version is in the works.
Agreed. Duel of Ages almost feels like you’re playing a Call of Duty game with a twist or something. The expansions add a lot of depth other than just killing one another too. Personally, I’m holding out for Duel of Ages 2.
SlyFrog
3463
I read the developer notes and suggestions for how they want to proceed with it, and it frankly looks like they’re ruining it.
Mysterio
3464
wahoo and I are playing a PBF game of Conquest of Nerath using BGG’s CoN PBF forum and the actual board game (we each have it set up in our homes to keep track of the game status, since WotC wouldn’t allow me to use game image assets). The photo below was taken right after I finished taking Iron Circle’s turn in Round 3 of the game. Each Round consists of each faction taking its turn in the following order:
Karkoth (black) -> Vailin (yellow) -> Iron Circle (red) -> Nerath (blue)
So, Nerath is up next, after which Round 4 will start with Karkoth’s turn.
We’re playing a 2-player game, so one person controls the Karkoth/Iron Circle (evil) alliance (me) and the other controls the Vailin/Nerath (good) alliance (wahoo). Each faction starts with a certain number of land spaces (indicated on the board via outlines matching their color) and pieces in those land (and some sea) spaces. The majority of each faction’s land spaces are contained in one of the four quadrants (Karkoth in the NE, Vailin in the SE, Iron Circle in the SW, and Nerath in the NW), but every faction starts with at least one land space on the island, and some even start with at least one in another faction’s quadrant. The VP track is on the left with one marker for each alliance.
The Karkoth/Iron Circle is currently leading the Vailin/Nerath alliance by 5 VPs (playing to 30 (the last green circle) for a victory), but Nerath still has to take his Round 3 turn. As you can see, Vailin’s in a tough spot, but Nerath has a lot of pieces and 3 Event cards plus 1 unrevealed Treasure card. So I’m worried wahoo has something dastardly planned, since Nerath’s Event deck is the strongest of the four.
I know it’s a crappy photo (any tips on taking better ones for this purpose?). But, if anyone’s interested in getting a closer look, I’ll post photos of each quadrant. Obviously, playing across the table from each other is the ideal way to play, but we’re both having a blast playing this way!
Not to pick a fight, I just want to make sure I didn’t miss something from his post… but where are you referring to? Is it back a few pages? I try to follow this thread but… there’s a lot of words! :P 'Prankster can attest to my ability to read “most of the stuff” on cards in Arkham anyway… I may have tried to accidentally pull a few very illegal moves. XD
No fight needed, I just wanted to verb your name :D
I meant this post where Bahimiron says “often there’s a person running the game.” Eduardo said Arkham and you said it wouldn’t fit the bill because there’s no DM. I took the original request to mean that there could or could not be a DM involved and since everything else screams Arkham to me I thought it was a very cromulent suggestion.
Tomb is polarizing, but I like it for all the reasons you don’t and don’t find party management to be that bad. Character abilities and spells are pretty basic. As for the rules? Yeah. But they’ve been updated and there are player aids and they’re not too tough to remember once you get playing.
I love how they didn’t even make an attempt to balance things. Some of the characters absolutely suck, but sometimes you’re forced to take them just to get into the crypt ahead of your opponents. Some of them are OP, or become so if you manage to get the right spells and equipment. It’s a giant casino that forces you to make do with what you have, and often there’s some way to make the guy with the OP party suffer even if you’re stuck with the Milquetoast Brigade.
So yeah, it’s chaotic, but the narrative that emerges from it makes the randomness worth it for me. With a lot of stuff like this the post-game discussion often boils down to “remember when I rolled that 8 right when I needed it?” Tomb is more like, “remember when I had that crappy Zartoch and then three more Zartochs showed up at the inn and I went frickin’ apeshit all over the crypt?” OK, that’s kind of a sad example, particularly if you don’t know that there are multiple copies of Zartoch and he gets stronger as you recruit his clones, but this is the kind of game that is fun just to watch and see what kind of crazy stuff you pull out of the grab bag.
Alright, cool. I didn’t miss anything, just different interpretations. : ) …and way to slip “cromulent” in there, Mr. Vocabulary!
Interpreting that post is not entirely dissimilar to interpreting some of the more obtuse AH cards. Fitting, actually. (And yeah, I can confirm that Inspectiguppy does tend to read about half the words on an AH card :p)
ckessel
3470
Duel of Ages is probably my favorite game of the last 15 years, maybe all time. It’s not even remotely for everyone though as it’s something of what I term a “lifestyle game”. For example, Advance Squad Leader would fall into that category.
It takes a lot of playing and fairly regular playing to be good at it and see when things make sense. There are some combinations of characters that only happen maybe once in 10 or 20 games, but for those you really have some specific things you want to try and do in that game.
It’s really best as a 2 player game. A friend and me have probably played it 50 times over the years.
Hey now, don’t scare folks away. ASL this ain’t, as you can jump right in and still have a ball without constantly referring to a binder of rules. Also, while the depth is there waiting for you if you play enough, it’s perfectly possible to play this as a beer & pretzels slugfest akin to Heroscape.
Nobody else seemed to have a problem with it.
malkav11
3473
I like the cut of your jib, sir. Arkham Horror has completely replaced Talisman for me as my go-to game of this sort, and they are one of my favorite kinds of boardgame. It has all the random happenings and conflict and loot and interlocking powers and such that I so love, with the added bonus of being cooperative (the phase of Talisman I’ve always disliked is where clearly people are so powerful that they ought to just go after the Crown of Command and it turns into a straight up competition, rather than just occasionally screwing each other for some profit). The theme’s not the usual fantasy dungeon crawl, though, so for people who want that and that only, there’s probably some good option I’ve not yet twigged to. I know Runebound isn’t it for me because of the spawning and movement rules, which can easily ensure turn after turn of doing nothing much of interest.
Movement in Runebound has been tweaked over the years into something much more workable than it used to be (especially relative to the first edition rules, which were crap). When playing with two, even if you get stuck for a turn or two (two is rare), downtime is minimal.
Not that Runebound is for everyone, but I’m not sure what edition you’ve played and this is a common complaint from 1st edition players who never revisited the game.
I’m sure this has been asked in the thread before, and possibly even recently, but a thread search involving numbers just keeps bringing up 7 Wonders & stuff on page 7:
What are recommendations for games that support more than 4 or 5 players? We tend to get around 6 or 7 people showing up for Game Night, and nobody wants to split into groups right off the bat. So we end up playing the same couple games over and over again.
So far we’ve got: 7 Wonders, Kill Doctor Lucky, Red Dragon Inn, and now King of Tokyo.
Games I like & want more of, for reference: Dominion, Thebes, Thurn & Taxis, Puerto Rico, and Dominion. Also: Dominion.
Any suggestions for reasonably contemporary games that support a lot of players?
Speaking of King of Tokyo: It was pretty fun! My only real complaint is that it’s easy to get knocked out pretty early on and have to just sit and watch everybody else play.
You can play Dominion with six if you get the Intrigue expansion. I think it would be a little on the slow side but if everyone is into it it might work. Power Grid and Acquire are the same way, great games similar to your taste that might be a bit slow with six, but it’s possible if people don’t mind the downtime.
Cyclades is a five player game but the upcoming expansion (hopefully in October) expands it to six. Might be worth checking out, it’s a pretty cool dudes on a map type game with a lot of Euro style rules.
Robo Rally actually goes to 8 and because the turns are simultaneous there isn’t much downtime. Just don’t go crazy when making the map or you’ll be there for a day. Really fun stuff, especially if your group likes to laugh at each other’s misfortune. Plus, robits.
Sounds like you need a house rule for late game joins and/or reanimations!
Oh? How did they change the movement rules? I always found the 1st edition’s intriguing, but ultimately unsatisfying.
If you like that, this geeklist is for you. Like RftG they’re all a little rough around the edges (some more than others) and they all toss you into the deep end with little explanation. That said, I’m playing a little Dominion to see if it’s for me, reliving some memories with Formula De (and coming to the conclusion that it’d be AWESOME on iPad) and having a blast with the wonky solitaire implementation of Red November while trying to figure out Kingsburg and Agricola.
Sweet! I hadn’t checked this list in a long time, and didn’t know Keldon (who made the superb Race for the Galaxy computer version) converted Blue Moon. He makes killer AI, so I’m looking forward to trying this out.
I see Roll or Don’t (a PC version of Sid Sackson’s classic Can’t Stop) is still going strong. It belongs on every laptop/netbook. I keep hoping someone does an iOS port, but I haven’t seen one yet. http://www.rollordont.com/
This version of Carcassonne also looks nice: http://jcloisterzone.com/en/
And Fabled Lands. Holy carp! http://flapp.sourceforge.net/ I had no idea the actual game books had been reprinted, too.
