Tabletop Game Talk, Anyone?

They really are super expensive, but it's not much worse than a newly released video game.  I actually only own a few contemporary games myself.  Never had to buy a version of Catan because everyone else already owns one.  I've got a buddy with a zillion games, so it's easy to mooch off him.  Best of all, down the hill from where I live there's a new board game cafe with thousands of dollars worth of contemporary games available to play for unlimited time under a $5 door cover.

I have never tried the GoT game(s) but I thought they looked great. We used to play a ton of Axis and Allies (Or rather the World at War addon that made it more fun) in high school but getting people together for a game that can run that long simply isn't feasible more than once a year or two these days (especially when the guy that owned the game moved to the states for a while.)

That same crew has played Shogun a few times and that's a lot of fun with its weird ass battle tower thing but is still a lot more random that I'd like, at least in the games I've played so far.

I've been playing a ton of more casual games lately and it's actually been great. I got my parents and a few friends playing Ticket to Ride on a regular basis, I'm sick to death of Catan but we still play it regularly when I'm having a family night. Lately friends and I have been blasting through a few rounds of King of Tokyo with the power up expansion and that's always a great time, particularly when we've had a few drinks are too far gone to play any more Coconuts or do anything super complex game wise.

If you're interested in trying out TTR the iOS and Steam versions are both quite good and cheap. Personally I think Europe is a better map than the USA one but both benefit from the expansion pack of extra cities (I'm not sure if that's available for the europe electronic versions. I often play a round or two on my old iPod touch on the bus ride home if my phone is low on power.



I'm curious if anyone here is a King of Tokyo fan and if so have they tried the new King of New York version?  I haven't heard anything about it yet.

I used to play a lot of table top games with my ex because our mutual friends loved them, but she got all of those post-break up. My one roommate likes to play but he buys all these complicated ones, like Axis and Allies or Arkham Horror and then we never get around to playing them because he's not good at organizing sessions for things like this, not to mention that he doesn't know the rules. The most complex thing we can ever arrange a game of is Catan, and even then it's rare due to lack of players. Neither of us have the amount of close friends required for that sort of thing it seems. Lately we got into Netrunner a bit. I got really nervous about it though because I suck so much compared to my roommate. We got caught up playing regular old video games though and haven't touched that in a month or two, unfortunately.

I kinda wish I had an iPad for all the sweet digital versions of games. Android doesn't have much.

I went to a weekly board game night several times last year, but the host has an odd habit of playing the same game every week until he's tried out every single scenario for the game and any expansions he owns, so if you don't like a game you're screwed for however long that takes. (As in, this year he played the same game from February to October. So none for me!)

I DID like the Mage Knight board game...but the complexities of the spell card portion are too frustrating to follow along with everything else.

I like strategic games with lots of detail (like Axis and Allies), but I'm spoiled by 30 years of PC gaming in that I'd rather play the electronic versions of most of them so I don't have to worry about forgetting some of the rules.

I used to own a Warhammer 40K Chaos Space Marines army. It's one of the big reasons I currently have a huge credit card balance because I bought more than I could afford. I LOVE the style of the Space Marine army, especially with the Chaos thrown in. I also realized after buying a ton of figures that I enjoyed painting more than playing the actual game, and enjoyed assembling custom figures and vehicles more than painting, so I ended up with a bunch of stuff assembled and half-painted. (I think the only things I actually painted 100% to completion were Kharn the Destroyer and a squad of plastic marines.) Last thing I was working on before giving up was a Land Raider with magnetically-attached interchangeable weapons so I didn't have to have a different model for every loadout I wanted to try.

I much prefer physical tabletop games to a device port.  However, you don't often find someone to play thousands of games of backgammon with.  And there are so many moments at work where I have to wait on something for four minutes.



61% of points scored.  I play a lot of backgammon, you guys.

My mom's family has played games at Christmas for as long as I can remember, and I remember how excited I was when I got old enough to play. It's still one of my favorite parts of the holiday. We have some great family stories, the king of which involves a game of Pictionary from before my time:

My mother and unassuming great-grandmother were on the same team, the latter was doing the drawing, and the clue was "prick". While others were drawing fingers and needles, great-grandma drew the figure of a man with an arrow pointing at the dick. Mom kept guessing every word for penis she wasn't too embarrassed to say in front of her favorite relative, but because she didn't say "prick" Grandma just kept drawing the phallus larger and larger...

Anyway, last year Lifemate gave me the Intrigue edition of Dominion, one of the stand-alone sets that has much more attack and interaction cards than the original. I brought it down to the family and had a pretty good time of it with the younger crowd. The larger family mostly prefers Catchphrase these days, maybe because everyone gets to shout the answers instead of yelling about the rules.

I loved this story

No though I've heard good things from a friend in another city who I only play table games with once every 4 years or so.

Catchphrase has been the game of choice the past few Christmases. For those not familiar, you pass an electronic hot potato between two teams, trying to get your teammates to to say the magic phrase. This year we played a version themed around the decades from the 70s to now. Pretty funny with a family of pop culture-illiterates. The real hilarity comes when people shout out guesses that hint at what they really think, or laugh at the perversion of a phrase. When the clue was "national debt", I was proud that my 18-year-old cousin out of Republican parents said, "Obama tried to reduce this..."

Last night at the dumpling party we played a couple games of 7 Wonders. I was in last place by a very sizable margin in the first game, but I was able to get to second place in the second game. I had fun, but I was getting really frikkin' tired by the end since it was NYE and I don't generally stay up until midnight.

So I'm getting a new roommate that's actually got his life in relative order and would absolutely be down for some tabletop RPGing, something me and my other roommate have been wanting to try out for some time now. We've already established that I'm going to be the GM, but now we're wondering what game to play. I've been reading the rules to Dungeon World and it seems relatively simple, so I'm thinking we'll give that a try. Anyone have any experience with it, or perhaps know of any other fairly accessible RPGs?

Never have played Carcasonne, but I know that box art. Speaking of tile games, I'm still waiting for an opportunity to play a modded version of Cyclades. Agricola is also on my list; I have played the mini two-person version All Creatures Big and Small several times.

Oh man, anybody remember "By Jove!"? I have very fond memories of that from 5th grade, back when I just started to get into mythology. It was a pretty conventional game, but I played it a bunch of times is school because it was educational or something.

I do but only as a player. This is also the only tabletop RPG I've ever played so I unfortunately can't give any comparisons to other systems.
The people in the group either played tabletop RPGs decades ago or only had experience with computer or video game RPGs, so we were all fairly new to the experience, and as such I can say that Dungeon World is accessible to the neophyte. The vanilla game doesn't let players customize their characters too much, which I think is helpful if you're brand new so that you don't get paralyzed by all the decisions you have to make before the game even starts.

I find the gaming sessions quite fun, but I wonder how much of my enjoyment is from the specific group and the DM. I skimmed through a couple of pages of the manual before getting bored so I do have to give props to our DM for keeping all that invisible for us players. Sorry, guess I don't really have the experience to give an informative review but take this anecdote as being one supportive of the game.