Nobody can tell Marmaduke what to do. That's my kind of dog.

Trick ,'First Date'


Gaming 1: You are likely to be eaten by a grue

A thread for the discussion of games: board, LARP, MMORPG, video, tabletop RPG, game theory etc. etc. and all attendant news, developments and ancillary subjects thereof, as well as coordinating/scheduling games either online or IRL. All are welcome to chime in, talk about their favorite games or learn about gaming of any sort.

PLEASE TO WHITEFONT SPOILERS for video games, RPG modules or anything for which foreknowledge of events might lessen one's enjoyment of whatever gaming experience.


NoiseDesign - May 29, 2008 8:22:00 pm PDT #786 of 26132
Our wings are not tired

Coffee is more important that grandparents. I'm just saying.


megan walker - May 29, 2008 8:23:21 pm PDT #787 of 26132
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

Toilet paper rules!


billytea - May 29, 2008 8:27:00 pm PDT #788 of 26132
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

We had a very billytea game night with megan. We played Settlers (with Knights and Cities explansion for six people), Zombie Fluxx, and Acquire (this cool old game megan brought). So much fun!

Excellent. Incidentally, Acquire is an Avalon Hill game, which means that the website I linked to before with online RoboRally also has online Acquire.

How do you find the Cities and Knights expansion? I've heard it's well worthwhile, but I've never actually played it.

My latest gaming news (aside from hunting down and destroying seven robots in RoboRally) was a couple of nights ago. Wallybee couldn't sleep, we had a game of Lost Cities to pass the time. She utterly annihilated me, 140 to -11. For those who know the game, we've two cards left in the draw pile, she's played three handshakes on the green expedition and nothing else. In her last two turns she plays 9 and 10, reducing her -80 penalty to a measly -4, and closed out the game, leaving me with large deficits all over the place. It's easily the largest defeat she's ever inflicted on me, in any game.

For some reason, she slept just fine after that.


Pix - May 29, 2008 8:30:34 pm PDT #789 of 26132
We're all getting played with, babe. -Weird Barbie

Don't forget "What's It to Ya?"!
Ha! How could I have forgotten? That game was so much fun and so very bizarre.

Coffee is more important that grandparents. I'm just saying.
Case in point: it caused that statement.

How do you find the Cities and Knights expansion? I've heard it's well worthwhile, but I've never actually played it.
It took forever to figure out (an hour of instruction-wrangling), but I really liked it.

For some reason, she slept just fine after that.
I love Wallybee.


megan walker - May 29, 2008 8:31:41 pm PDT #790 of 26132
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

How do you find the Cities and Knights expansion? I've heard it's well worthwhile, but I've never actually played it.

I liked it, esp. that you could build when it wasn't your turn. It took forever to set up though since we were sort of re-learning the main game at the same time.

ETA: ND, Kristin, and I also played Ticket to Ride Europe the night before.


billytea - May 29, 2008 8:48:50 pm PDT #791 of 26132
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

I liked it, esp. that you could build when it wasn't your turn.

The 5-6 player expansion of Settlers allows that too. I agree, I find it preferable.

ND, Kristin, and I also played Ticket to Ride Europe the night before.

I've introduced Wallybee to the original TtR (with the 1910 expansion, which I thoroughly recommend, both for larger train cards and a greater variety of routes). Haven't really tried TtRE with her yet. I'm not sure why, but I don't enjoy it as much. TtR Marklin I played once, it seemed interesting, but as yet not interesting enough for me to buy it for myself.


NoiseDesign - May 29, 2008 8:52:26 pm PDT #792 of 26132
Our wings are not tired

I just checked that out and a new version of Acquire is due out next month. Very cool.


NoiseDesign - May 29, 2008 8:54:14 pm PDT #793 of 26132
Our wings are not tired

Post Toasties.

I think we might have to pick up Ticket to Ride. That was really fun.


billytea - May 29, 2008 9:03:13 pm PDT #794 of 26132
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

I think we might have to pick up Ticket to Ride. That was really fun.

It's a great game for people with different levels of gaming interest. I like the struggle between greed and fear it geenrates.

A piece of advice: if you get the original version, get the 1910 expansion too. The original version has a problem with the balance, in that it's quite easy for one person to get more high-scoring cross-country tickets and basically get a big boost on winning the game. The 1910 expansion mitigates the effect, by:

1. Adding more tickets to the game
2. Allowing you to take more tickets each time, improving your odds of getting good ones
3. Introducing a 15-point bonus for completing the most tickets (which also occurs in TtR Europe).

It also contains full-size train cards, like TtRE; original TtR has dinky little train cards.

If you don't get the 1910 expansion, then try this variant for the tickets:

Split the tickets into two group, 13+ (ten tickets) and 12- (twenty tickets). Whenever you draw tickets, take one from the former pile and two from the latter pile. It better balances the route value that players get during the game. (You'll note this mechanism is somewhat similar to the way TtRE works.)


NoiseDesign - May 29, 2008 9:08:13 pm PDT #795 of 26132
Our wings are not tired

I really liked TtRE so I'm kinda leaning towards that one.