There doesn’t seem to be a regular tabletop gaming topic here, so might as well start one now.
This is a thread to talk about analog games. Games you’re currently playing, nostalgic memories, news, etc. If you want to talk about video games, there’s already a great thread for that. But tabletop games that use apps or even games turned into apps? Those fit in just fine here.
Over the past year and a half my oldest daughter and I have been attending monthly RPG nights hosted by the library. It’s been really cool not only to see her engage in this imagination play but also to see her so welcomed. The gaming space has obviously opened up over the decades. Not only are there more tables opening up for people, but the games themselves are expanding in theme and audience. The system my daughter was brought in under was Tales of Equestria, the (now old) My Little Pony game. Characters use a simple handful of stats, and those stats determine what kind of die you use to roll for outcome. Adventures are supposed to be fairly short and prosocial in nature. It’s not a combat game. To emphasize this, there are bonuses for helping one another. Friendship is magic in this game.
I’m hoping to see more games of this nature, and there apparently are many out there and in development. Polygon has a great article on hopepunk games that I think is worth reading. Along those lines, I’ve been reading Familiars of Terra in hopes of convincing some friends to play while the library is undergoing long needed renovations. FoT is about a world in which humans and animals developed close, bonded pairs, and as such a more green world was developed. Electric cars. Solar energy. No pollution. Awesome concept.
As from all that, I picked up a birthday gift for my daughter and an expansion to Wingspan to play with my wife who is newly into birding in real life. It’s a good time to be a gamer.
Since last July, I’ve been running one-shot adventures at my local brewery via Meetup. Decided that if I wanted to play more, and of games I like, I needed to do it from the opposite side of the table… And the brewery folks (a few who are also players of various games, tabletop and otherwise) were warm on the idea and happy to set a table aside for me.
I’m using Old School Essentials (a rewrite of B/X D&D) to keep things fast and loose for folks. I’ve had everyone from first-time players to 40-year rpg veterans at the table.
Over the last few months, I’ve had enough repeat customers/regulars at the table that I decided to calve the game off of Meetup and just run it as an ongoing campaign. The seeds were already there, as the ongoing one-shots were based around a single starting town and some consistent lore was beginning to emerge.
So yes, the PCs are now beginning to research what “The Barrier” of yore was, and why there are so many damn mutants emerging from the mountains…
I count myself very fortunate to have acquired a group of players who are fun folks and amicable to my style of game-running and world-building. It’s been one of the good things to happen to me this year.
Oh where to start. About 13 years ago my spouse and I started a weekly game night for Risus and Catan. We had about 3-4 friends over, played some games, ate some food, and had some drinks.
Over the years this thing has ballooned…we now house 600+ games for our local Con, have had weeks as large as 40 people, hosted wedding receptions, and had major catastrophes (car through a house anyone?).
What’s on my tabletop? Zombie Dice with 2 Double Feature expansions and The Bus. Always and forever. We take it everywhere, super easy to learn, quick to play, and scales (I think we’ve done 15 ppl at once).
What shows up regularly? We all have our favorite games, and try new things often. It’s hard to tell what the group will be in the mood for any given week. We’ve run Mysterium, Flourish, and Ancestree more than twice this year, I guess that counts as regular
All in all, good times, great friends, and hundreds of games played. Everyone raise a glass to their local groups! Huzzah!
Several years ago when my wife and I hosted a regular gaming group, Zombie Dice was usually a great starter for us. Quick (most of the time), easy to learn, and easy setup and takedown. Oh, the drama that can unfold around those dice. I couldn’t convince people to play with the bus expansion much, though. After that, I didn’t pick up any of the others. What do you think they all add to the game?
I’ve been playing a lot of Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert lately- I find that a lot of folks get really into the cooperative play mode, and aside from the fun tile mechanic, they’re a lot more fun and lighthearted than Pandemic for casual players.
The BEST GAME I’ve discovered lately, though is Otrio. It’s a quick 5 minute game, but addictive enough to play for hours on end. It’s basically 4 player, 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, so it takes 15 seconds to learn all the rules, and there’s an insane amount of complex strategy in it’s simplicity. Someone had it set up at the food vendor’s table at an event I was at, and people were playing it all week.
Full disclosure- Those are my affiliate links. You don’t have to use them- In fact, Barnes and Noble (in store only, not online) had Otrio on sale for $20 when I got mine- But I get a couple bucks if you do.
Double Feature has two new rulesets for 3 dice - The Hunk + The Hottie as a pair with weird rules, and Santa. We don’t use the H+H rules, but we use the dice. This is all about Santa! Santa can give you a helmet to absorb an extra blast, an energy drink turns green feet to brains (fast zombie), 2x brains (thanks Santa!), or 2x blasts (boo!)
Really, it’s more dice to roll, and isn’t that what it’s all about?
We took one of these beanies and turned it into the bag (it’s so old we got it from ThinkGeek!)
I’m a Yahtzee fanatic. For whatever reason, I have several versions, including a giant outdoor set. There’s something about the numbers and odds that keeps me hooked.
Other favs include Catan, Ticket to Ride, Machi Koro, and There’s a Moose in the House, which everyone should play at least once.
Have you ever tried King of Tokyo? It takes the Yahtzee mechanic and uses it as a kaiju battle to make it a bit more interactive around the table. You’re not trying to get different combinations for scoring purposes, instead you’re often looking for matches on dice to try to survive to the bitter end.
The base set of King of Tokyo is fine, but you get more out of it with the Power-Up expansion. If you find you like the game but want something cooperative, they recently released King of Monster Island. Five monster players protecting the world from a big bad whose actions are determined by dropping dice into a dice tower volcano!
Gotta say, as a gamer dad, Dragomino works as a game that works for my 6 year old without boring me too much. Kingdomino was already a really solid game. Tweaking it so points are just a little more random (but can be “gamed” by thoughtful play) and building your area isn’t so constrained were brilliant moves. I’m very much in favor of simplifying more hobby games – for kids and, honestly, just in general.
I’m a big fan of BattleTech and we’ve managed to form a healthy-sized group of players since the lockdowns ended. Off to get a game in tonight, in fact. And then hopefully meeting one of the game’s developers on Sunday.
My family went through a heavy Yahtzee phase in the late 90s. My sister’s boyfriend used to call my mom and stepdad the Yahtzee Nazi’s (which isn’t as funny in hindsight, especially considering how redneck my sisters have become, but Maine can be a…sheltered place).
The idea of using it as a roleplaying mechanic is awesome. Yahtzee has a Fundamentals of Gaming feel similar to Rummy’s position in cards, and I love the way card-playing has been incorporated as various mechanics, like the spell-casting in Deadlands.
My 5 and 8 yo daughters are avid storytellers, and I’ve been slowly mixing in various dice, coin and card mechanics into the stories when I play with them.
Recently we bought a 3/4 inch grid (12x20) whiteboard that we’ve been using to make up boardgames on the fly. My older daugjter loves to invent and my younger daughter gets bored without concrete winning and losing, so it’s a great collaboration/compromise for us.
The 12 by 20 grid makes it super easy to role random placements of obstacles and bonuses (e.g the Fallabella pony moves randomly around the board, if you land on her you get an extra turn)
It looks like I’m officially give to be GMing my first RPG this summer. This is obviously a very broad request, but does anyone have any advice they can give to a first-timer?
My other half and I have been getting back into our board games the last couple of weeks. We had a game of plague inc. last night, which is the board game version of the PC/mobile game. It’s excellent. Play as competing pathogens on a world map. We have the armageddon add-on pack for that too.
Last weekend we played the two player card game spinoff of catan, it’s very well designed, lots of depth and variety. The different eras all require you to adopt very different strategies, an approach that can be vital to winning one era can be useless or detrimental in another. We have one of the add-on packs for that too, 3 more eras that add even more complexity.
We have a few board games that work well with only two players, out of the two I mentioned, rivals for catan is only for two, plague inc is great for up to 4, or 5 with the expansion pack. Azul is great with two, not sure if we’ve tried it with more people, but it’s for up to 4 players. It’s quick and simple to get the gist of, but with plenty of depth. Hive is lovely, we’ve got that, really nice tactile tiles that all fit in a little fabric bag, they’re thick and weighty enough to play anywhere there’s a flat-ish surface without worrying about them getting knocked or blown about.
We also have full sized catan for the rare occasion when we want to involve other people
