5801

War of the Ring was one I looked at. Also long and expensive, and I think we determined he wanted something that was a little more “operational” level (although not sure Wizard Kings really fits the bill on that, actually).

Since I already have Battlecry and Battlelore (which he’s into), I decided that getting him Memoir 44 probably wasn’t providing much that’s new for him.

Thanks again!

5802

Ahh. Makes sense.

Its close enough to operational at this point in his life.

5803

I’ve never had a bad hand force me to sit in place and do nothing, so I couldn’t say. Maybe they just didn’t understand how Mage Knight works and spent a turn whining about it on a forum.

5804

Ah, okay.

The only thing I’m afraid of in regards to NetRunner is getting somewhat hooked, or somehow forcing myself to believe that I need to buy all the new packs they release. I’m pretty compulsive when it comes to stuff like that. In fact, I might even spring for the two packs that are already out when I buy the starter box. Oh well. We’ll see how it goes.

5805

Lordy me. Impaled by your razor wit and mad hand drawing skills.

I give in. Mage Knight isn’t a puzzle game with a generic fantasy theme pasted on where movement is designed to slow the game down.

Thanks for showing me the light. Happy Valentines Day!

5806

Nightgaunt,

I forgot to mention this. I would not suggest War of the Ring for father & son, unless the father and son love obtuse and complex manuals with layers upon layers of clumsy clunky rules with lots of exceptions.

It’s really not worth it. The rules are super clunky and we spend most of our time looking stuff up when we play, and I saw this having read boardgame manuals for 35 years and having memorized the rules to SFB and Squad Leader. WotR’s rules are by far the most overly complex and overly engineered I’ve ever read. Nothing elegant about these rules.

5807

The rules are horribly written and horribly organized. There’s no denying that. Which is especially bad because it’s not all that complicated really (certainly not compared to SFB!). It’s sort of Risk++ with a lot of LotR flavor. But if you could, say, get someone else to teach it to you, or find a good video explaining it, you could have fun with it, if you were into that kind of thing.

Man, now I want to play it again :P

5808

The down side I had with War of the Ring was that it felt like it was only one scenario with an optimal path of play. Of course, I haven’t played it that much so maybe someone could convince me otherwise.

5809

The rules to War of the Ring are big and complex if the games you are used to playing are things like Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico, yes.

If you want to play a good war game, sack up. For god’s sake, it’s not like it’s Star Fleet Battles or Advanced Squad Leader.

To help address this, it would help to know what you think the “one scenario with an optimal path of play” is.

5810

I would agree that the rules for War of the Ring suffers a bit from an organizational standpoint. For what the game covers I think it does a great job of giving that whole experince. The blending of cards, random action selection and other nifty little mechanics is nice take.

The designers actually went on to do Age of Conan by Fantasy Flight. It has similar rules and feel but I think a little more streamlined. Most likely due to the inclusion of up to 4 players, with their own faction not teams. Each player is an empire vying for prestige and Conan functions as a game clock and spoiler as he moves across the map, controlled by highest bidder each round.

Tom M

5811

I have to say, I have the issues some people are talking about with a lot of Fantasy Flight games. I don’t know that it’s that their rules are always poorly written or poorly organized (they’re certainly not always brilliant). I think it’s that their rules are often just one step too complex and, more critically, not as intuitive as they might be. Even Arkham Horror, which I’ve played at least a dozen times, I need to recap the rules for engaging monsters on the same spaces as gates and stuff like that.

I don’t think Fantasy Flight should stop making the thematic mid-to-heavy weight games that they seem to specialize in. I think it’s an important part of the hobby’s ecosystem and I think many of these games are great. But I sometimes wonder if they would be able to shave off just a few of the rough edges on most products and thereby let me leave the rules in the box after the first couple plays.

5812

I can see that and its a fair point. Complex games are well, complex and you may want that book close at hand. As you do get deeper into each game your dependency is lessened. Only logical right? The more you play. A given game the comfort goes up. Now why pay that investment when you can jump right into oh something like Days if Wonder’s excellent Shadows over Camalot? Well the FF monsters can offer that deeper experince and with something like Arkham you’re always in for a evolving story.

I do see FF trying to make some of their games more ‘casual’. They recently rereleased RuneWars, no idea how that turned out, and the second edition of Descent is made to be much more approachable.

Tom M

5813

I like GMT games’ method of including a playbook with a detailed example of a few turns (if not a whole game). I wish more game makers would follow suit (when applicable…obviously a playbook isn’t necessary for King of Tokyo, for example).

5814

While FFG does specialize in games of moderate to intense complexity, I think a huge part of the learning curve is that they are really bad at rulebooks on multiple levels. Organization, explanation, clarity, etc. Arkham Horror is not actually very complicated to play despite a significant number of moving parts, but you would never be able to tell that from the rulebook they included.

5815

I’ll be overdosing on boardgames this weekend at OrcCon in LA (originally named for Orange County Convention, kind of ironic, I suppose, but it looks likes it named for orcs and goblins, so the name still works). The Tzolk’in Mayan Calendar game tourney is today. Like the game, but I’m not sure at all that it doesn’t have a one strategy only problem. Cute mechanic with all the interlocking, geared calendars - the “Uber-Pimp My Game” fanatics have produced some fantastic custom painted ones.

5816

Bad rulebooks arn’t really a Fantasy Flight problem, it’s an industry problem. The designers may do a good job of getting a great game together but the rulebook breaks down. I’ve become pretty tolerant so what I am willing to deal with personally is not always something I would recommend to someone else to learn without an experienced player. My Phil Eklund games are a good example of this. High Frontier and Bios:Megafuana Being written in Avalon Hillese and coming across like a technical manual with numbered sections they would be hard to get through. Those two also get accused of being more sim and exercises in fusteration then actual games.

But I think poor rules are everywhere. Sometimes a game can be so simple it’s near impossible to mess up the explanation. You wouldn’t need as technical a writer for something like Ticket to Ride as you would for something like War of the Ring.

Tom M

5817

I want to really like Dominant Species, but it has taken youtube videos just to teach me the basics of a game.

5818

Dominent Species is a cool worker placement that is extremely confrontational. The actions are not super complex and the board helps you through the steps. The problem though is its like learning a foreign language with the terminology it uses and takes a while for it to click. Play it out is all I can suggest. Sometimes it’s easier to see what the rule is when you are actually moving the pieces as opposed to just sitting with the manual trying to visualize it.

Race for the Galaxy, is another ultimately simple game that has some obtuse iconography that you have to break through. Not as complex as Dominent Species though and a totally different kind of game it just has a similar problem.

Tom M

5819

FFG write terrible rules. That’s just how it is - they have a certain style that pervades their game writing, and combined with the type of games they produce (tons of counters), you get something that usually takes at least a few tries to get.

War of the Ring is a great game, though. It may not be the best game mechanically, but as I think I’ve commented here before, it is one of best narrative board games ever done. There is no other board game that has ever come as close to adapting another creative work as WotR manages to do with Tolkien’s trilogy.

The complexity might be a bit much for an 11-year old, but if he has any love for Lords of the Rings, it’s the kind of game he will love to play later.

5820

When I teach people Race for the Galaxy, I say quite explicitly that it’s a like learning a new language. I find the icon and card design to be quite impressive, actually, and I don’t think it ultimately hurts the game or means it’s too complex. It just makes the learning process somewhat unique from other games.

It’s a lot easier to think of bad rulebooks, but can anyone think of any really great rulebooks or particularly successful formats. I think first of the Alea big box games like Notre Dame and Year of the Dragon (can’t recall if Puerto Rico shared the same format). If I’m remembering correctly, they do this thing where they put a summary of the basic steps of the game in the margins, next to the longer textual description of the details of that step. So you basically have a fairly readable summary of the rules in that margin. Works well, although of course those are euro games with a handy degree of rules elegance.

Personally, I skip over rules examples. I don’t know why. I guess they just don’t feel like they’ll help me much, and they contain too much extraneous information. Every once in awhile they clarify a detail of the rules for me, but usually that’s a case of the main rules description not doing its job and the example picking up the slack. But I bet the value of rules examples is kinda like personal learning styles in school: some people learn by lecture, some by reading; I bet some people learn best with a strict factual presentation, and others with something more contextual.