Board Games

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pharmakos

soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
<Bronze Donator>
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completely new to board games. whats a good one to start with? i'm hoping for something dungeon crawler-y with character advancement, 3-4 hour playtime... imagining a mini-D&D session basically.
 

faille

Molten Core Raider
1,854
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completely new to board games. whats a good one to start with? i'm hoping for something dungeon crawler-y with character advancement, 3-4 hour playtime... imagining a mini-D&D session basically.
Descent it is probably what you're after, or Imperial the Assault if you'd prefer the same thing with a star war theme.
Mice and Mystics is good too and more kid friendly if you need that. Gloomhaven is also a good option, though hard to get at the moment.
 

Angerz

Trakanon Raider
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Gloomhaven's second printing KS just ended, they may still have a slacker backer thing on their website or something.

edit: looking for one, it appears that they don't, so Descent or Imperial Assault are probably your best bets. I've not played Imperial Assault, but I hear it is the one people slightly prefer. I do believe it plays one less person, however.
 

Fyff

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,728
5,380
completely new to board games. whats a good one to start with? i'm hoping for something dungeon crawler-y with character advancement, 3-4 hour playtime... imagining a mini-D&D session basically.
Descent and Imperial Assault are great games. One person plays as the Dungeon Master and everyone else plays as the PC's. The campaign is like 8 hours or so out of the box but you can easily do it in 2-4 hour chunks. Theme is fantasy or Star Wars.

TIME Stories has less character advancement but it is a fully cooperative game where you have to figure out plots and use clues really well. There is no DM and it is the closest thing I have ever found to playing Dungeons and Dragons in a board game without a DM. Theme is future people jumping in to bodies like Quantum Leap.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is also fully cooperative. It is played with just cards and dice. It is pretty much a Pathfinder campaign in a box. I highly recommend it. You can download the app to try it for free before dropping money on the box. The mechanics will feel very similar to playing an RPG. Theme is Fantasy.

Zombicide has character advancement that resets each missions. Also fully cooperative. It's much less mechanically difficult then the other games mentioned. Theme is zombie apocalypse or fantasy.

Thunderstone is a little more abstract as a dungeon crawler but is a very good introduction to the deck building genre. It is competitive where there is one winner each session. It plays in like an hour. Theme is fantasy.
 

Hateyou

Not Great, Not Terrible
<Bronze Donator>
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Seriously though, a couple more I haven't seen mentioned yet...

Warhammer silver tower
Ravingspire
 

Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
12,650
877
No love for KD:M? OMG he's pretty much described it (but seriously the price and learning curve are a tad steep for a first one)
 

Hateyou

Not Great, Not Terrible
<Bronze Donator>
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Yeah KDM is great but it's not for someone wanting to get into dungeon crawlers for their first time. He also didn't say "One where I fucking die a lot".
 

Seananigans

Honorary Shit-PhD
<Gold Donor>
13,699
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Hey, can someone suggest a good wine? I've never had one, want to try it.

"Yeah here's this $2,000 1968 French something-or-other, you'll love it!"

Haha. But yeah, KDM is sweet, it's just the literal pinnacle of adventure campaign board gaming both in complexity and cost of entry.
 

Onoes

Trakanon Raider
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My group hated Descent, the one player vs everyone else aspect always left one side feeling like the game was a bunch of crap. Either the DM won and all the players went "Well yeah, your powers are cheaty as fuck and that was 0 fun", or the players won and went "Well, yeah, we won, but barely because your powers are cheaty as fuck." and the Dm feels shitty. There's an app now that takes on the role of bad guy so you can all play together. I haven't tried it yet, but I hear good things, and I love the Mansions of Madness second edition one (which I think is close to the same thing). The app is free as well I believe, at least for a base campaign. Something worth looking into maybe? Find a youtube video and see if it fills your need.

As far as some of the other suggestions-
Gloomhaven, Your best option... but good luck finding it.
KDM, This is for when you already have a board game wall with thousands of dollars worth of games, not a first game.
Shadows of Brimstone, Awesome concept, but poorly executed game. Lots of wonky rules and easy to abuse mechanics.
Pathfinder Card game, Pretty fun little game, but can be very random feeling, and its all card based.
Zombiecide, Not the worst game, but not very good either. Doesn't really fulfill any campaign mode either, your chars start over every game.
Thunderstone, Not in print anymore, so Cost is $$$, plus again, its a card game, so no dice if you were hoping for any mini combat.

That's my shit take on all the games mentioned.
 

Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
12,650
877
For Descent assuming you don't mind app integration there's App vs. Players version now too. I've not actually played with it yet however to speak on how full fleshed it is, but the app looks robust from just looking at it. (Moreso than Mansions 2E which is quite robust in itself)

And yea, Pathfinder ACG rubs me the wrong way compared to the recent Call of Cthuhlu based one. (Blanking on name, been quite a week for me...)
 

Hateyou

Not Great, Not Terrible
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I've read good things about the app and that's probably the only way I'd ever play it again. We did a full day Descent session and it just wasn't very fun. Each map felt so one sided to one side or the other. We haven't played it since.
 
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Seananigans

Honorary Shit-PhD
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Both versions of Descent are good, and the 1vMany (non-app) campaigns get better and more balanced as the game matured, and additionally they released a new campaign book to combine with the base box set to sort of replace Shadow Rune.

The app is fantastic though, so if you're looking for a full co-op, it's great. There are two full length campaigns out right now, and a one-off "Delve" mode, plus a tutorial mini-campaign barely worth mentioning. Also, Imperial Assault is getting its own app for the co-op-ness, but who knows when that will release.
 

Taim

Trakanon Raider
33
11
Mistborn and Heart of the Mist expansion is card based and pretty crunchy. Its a step up from Warhammer Quest (awesome game). Fully coop and huge amount of replayability. Heart of the Mist streamlines the rules and gets rid of event deck that is 90% screw the party events. Its not the giant that Gloomhaven is, but it is much better than Descent or Imperial Assault.
 

Ratina

Bronze Knight of the Realm
243
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No love for the D&D branded games? Temple of Elemental Evil was pretty fun for our group, its ghetto D&D with minis, easy to play and learn.
 
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Warr

<Bronze Donator>
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I think Catan ruined more friendships for some reason.
I've seen a couple arguments break out in Catan (one was the usual cock-blocking for longest road, the other was my wife and I both going all in on the same rock and grain for early cities), but in general I don't think the game usually get nearly as cut-throat as others.
 
8
3
I am looking for some 2 player games to play with my wife. Needs to be fairly quick and easy to learn, for some reference we have 2 games so far.

Abyss - She likes this one, not much depth in my opinion but at least she will play it.
Seasons - I like Seasons but she doesn't have the patience to really learn it, so I guess deck building is out.
 

Fyff

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Tides of Time is an amazingly simple and amazingly deep two player game.
7 Wonders Duel is a really easy to learn game and plays well as well.
Splendor plays very well with 2 and is super replayable.
Star Realms is an awesome deck builder for two. Highly reccomended (download the free app if you have never played to try it out).
Forbidden (insert theme here) is an awesome co-op. My wife is not a gamer and we played a bunch of Forbidden Island. She enjoyed it because it plays in 15 minutes and we work together.
 
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