Board Games

I think there is a official deck of cards to use instead of rolling dice for Catan. Hell, I might try that for relic, now that I think of it...

Or you can just play a really good game instead of a shitty game that you are trying to make better....

Sentinals of the Multiverse is a really good game for 4-5 people. Each player represents a Hero and each Hero comes with their own deck of cards which is preformed so no deckbuilding. You face off against a villain who has various powers and such within their own deck, and you face them in an environment (again, represented by a deck) that is basically like a subvillain because it is usually cards that fuck you over. Gameplay is simple-ish. Heroes play a card, use a power, and draw a card. That's it. Each hero comes with a default power but cards in the deck can give you additional powers, though you can still only use one per turn (though sometimes a card will let you use an additional power). There's various flavors of Hero, ranging from pure support to pure damage and shades in between. Villains range from easy to hard and they have their own powers and some tricks up their sleeve to try and defeat the group, including henchmen of various forms. Environments affect everything, including the Villain so sometimes it's helpful but most times it is not. There's usually ways to get rid of bad environment cards but it's usually in some form of sacrifice from the Heroes, i.e. everyone discards one card, or a player skips their turn.

Worth picking up if you like cooperative games and would enjoy the super hero slant.

My sister just picked up Ticket to Ride: Europe.

We got one game in the other night, and it was decently fun. Seemed similar to PowerGrid in some ways to me, but a lot simpler.

Bought Catan last week and it was a big hit with the three guys I played it with. I got resource screwed but still nearly won with 2 settlements since I went for development cards and victory points that way.

Our group has been playing Descent a lot lately, any recommendations on which expansion to buy first?

Has The Resistance been reviewed in here? Thinking about picking it up.

Would you guys suggest Lords of Waterdeep or Euphoria? My friends and I play Talisman and while fun, it can get a little boring with all of the expansions.

I'm trying to get my hubbie into D&D and figured Castle Ravenloft may be a good introduction to it.

I think the easiest way to get someone into D&D is to find a local encounters group near you and just go one day. Then I would buy the new 5th Edition Starter game and do a one off campaign for them.

Dungeons D Encounters)

He would not be into that. He is not into nerds. Well, except for me. ;o

The resistance is good, basic social interaction game where everyone in the group gets paranoid and yells at each other for 20 mins. I love it. Outcome tends to favor the spies, but it can be fun regardless. It does scale decently well with number of players.

Kuriin_sl said:

Would you guys suggest Lords of Waterdeep or Euphoria? My friends and I play Talisman and while fun, it can get a little boring with all of the expansions.

I'm trying to get my hubbie into D&D and figured Castle Ravenloft may be a good introduction to it.

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Lords of Waterdeep is a great "builder" game - frankly the best in my experience for ones that are accessible to just add anyone to. (Like seriously, my in-laws who only really play card games and Ticket to Ride get the game and enjoy it)

I'll assume the Castle Ravenloft you're talking about is the recent board game one, not the old module or campaign setting book (they've reused the title a few times) - not played it, but the BGG reviews of the D&D board games outside of LoW are really spotty, always made me steer clear of them.

Descent 2E does a really good job of giving a really large variety of gameplay with the standard "D&D" feel while still being quite accessible. Mostly just rolling and comparing symbols with 1 cancelling out the other. Otherwise counting numbers besides the symbols for range and then the "surges" which are bonuses that can be applied multiple different ways depending on the creature or your equipment. It's "semi-coop" though, where it's 1 person playing the baddies with all the rest playing heroes though. There is a full coop version that stores have gotten for demoing which will supposedly be released for consumers in the Winter or something. (Seananigans I believe was the one who ran it for his store?)

Kuriin_sl said:

He would not be into that. He is not into nerds.

Well, except for me. ;o

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Doubt it will work, he will always feel like an outsider, if you haven't grown up with this kind of stuff it is really hard to get into/wrap your mind around. There is always Dixit.

Kuriin_sl said:

Would you guys suggest Lords of Waterdeep or Euphoria? My friends and I play Talisman and while fun, it can get a little boring with all of the expansions.

I'm trying to get my hubbie into D&D and figured Castle Ravenloft may be a good introduction to it.

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Do not know Euphoria, but Waterdeep is a great game. Simple game play, good copetition and good stratigy. Waterdeep with the expansion is even better. I always run both expansions and my group loves the game.

Antagonist_sl said:

The resistance is good, basic social interaction game where everyone in the group gets paranoid and yells at each other for 20 mins. I love it. Outcome tends to favor the spies, but it can be fun regardless. It does scale decently well with number of players.

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Thanks man! I've read a lot of positive things. Was only $15 so I bought it.

Kuriin_sl said:

Would you guys suggest Lords of Waterdeep or Euphoria? My friends and I play Talisman and while fun, it can get a little boring with all of the expansions.

I'm trying to get my hubbie into D&D and figured Castle Ravenloft may be a good introduction to it.

Click to expand...

Both Lords of Waterdeep and Euphoria are excellent board games. Waterdeep is better with the 5-6 player expansion, than it is as a stand alone, ihmo.

The best thing about both games is they are pretty quick to play, both in the 60 - 90 minute range. Waterdeep you have to pay a bit more attention to the game play, whereas Euphoria you are never "blocked" from doing what you want, as well as it being more of a controlled chaos with how fast events can happen. But it still requires you to look a bit ahead and manipulate things to fall into place the way you want them to.

I rate, and recommend, both games very highly!

Another +1 on Lords of Waterdeep.

I will add that while the expansion definitely adds to the game, I think the base game is very solid by itself, especially if you are new to the genre. Not one of those must buys to enjoy the game situations.

Noodleface_sl said:

Thanks man! I've read a lot of positive things. Was only $15 so I bought it.

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I'm not sure if they have it for Resistance but they have a similar game called Avalon. It has character cards that give advantages to the "spies" and other cards that give advantages to the resistance side. Characters are from Camelot lore like Merlin, etc. Adds a bit of flavor to the same theme. Again they may have it for Resistance, but I was pretty sure that was just for Avalon.

Anybody catch that article in Grantland a few weeks ago about Diplomacy?

http://grantland.com/features/diplom...e-alpha-nerds/

It really got me interested in the game and I've been playing online atPlay Diplomacy Online ::: web version of the classic Diplomacy board gamefor the past few weeks. if you love to troll and mindfuck people, this is the game.