2009.05.10
Posted in Board Games, Friends at 10:31 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Last night, Jason and I finally got around to trying one of the league scenarios that Fantasy Flight produced for Arkham Horror. We’ re only now starting on the first set of scenarios, so we’re a little behind.
We played “A Tide of Serpents” and won without things getting too out of control. Part of it was luck, but I felt that we played well overall and managed our resources carefully as a team. What I found most interesting was actually the game setup. In keeping with the way the scenarios are intended to be played, we only used the base game, and removed all of the components from the expansions. I had forgotten just how much stuff the expansions added to the game – in many cases, the investigator card decks were less than half of their full blown size. I suspect this also reduced the randomness factor quite a bit, and made the game easier than playing with the expansions included.
In any case, I’m looking forward to the next scenario.
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2009.05.10
Posted in Board Games at 10:22 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I played two games of Tzaar last night and lost them both. I really need to start playing abstract strategy games more often.
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2009.05.09
Posted in Board Games, Friends at 1:50 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
As part of my board game hobby I enjoy playing a variety of cooperative games, and roughly speaking, they fall into three categories:
- Pure cooperative games, where all the players are on the same team
Examples: Lord of the Rings, Arkham Horror
- Known-adversary cooperative games, where one player is “the bad guy” and the other players are cooperating against him
Examples: Scotland Yard, Fury of Dracula, Descent, Lord of the Rings w/ Sauron expansion
- Cooperative games where all of the players appear to be on the same side, but one or more may secretly be working against the team as traitors
Examples: Werewolf, Shadows over Camelot, Battlestar Galactica
I find all three enjoyable, but I find the games that involve a traitor to be the most difficult for me to play. I recently purchased Battlestar Galactica, and both times I’ve played it, I’ve been the traitor. Depending on the group, the game can become intensely political, and while it’s not a friendship-ruiner like Diplomacy, it’s still tough to sit around the table with your friends, look them in the eye, and lie to them. It’s also difficult to walk the fine line of appearing to be helpful generally while trying to sabotage things where possible. Particular to Battlestar Galactica, there’s an additional agonizing decision of whether to reveal yourself as a traitor or try and hide the entire game. The “big reveal” can be devastating if timed correctly, and there’s always the temptation to do so before you’re caught.
Many years ago my favorite tactic in Risk was best described as “Let’s you and him fight” and it earned me the nickname of Bismarck. Maybe with practice I’ll regain those metagaming skills, although hopefully without pissing off all of my friends in the process.
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