...Tabletop Gaming

Trynant · May 2, 2010

Haters gonna hate, but some of you have a shameful secret. Some might call it a badge of honor.

You are a tabletop gamer.

Boardgames, pen and paper RPGs, card games--one way or another, you are in a deeper tier of nerddom than most.

That's a good thing! Let's talk about games played ontop of tables. From D&D to Magic the Gathering to Fluxx to Chess, there's a bevy of games that I suspect some of you partake in.

I've gotten a fair amount of boardgame playing and RPG stuff going on with my non-tabletop gamer friends, and it's fun bringing them into new experiences. I played the card game Dominion with a friend who usually sticks to more non-nerdy stuff and now he likes playing it more than I do.

I'm about to DM a Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (hater's gonna hate) adventure with some friends with all-but no experience with RPGs. After playing this edition for a while I can safely say I enjoy it far more than the previous D&Ds because it makes the gamey part of the game streamlined and fun. Sure, there are plenty of good RPGs that focus on the roleplay and story-telling (my choice for this is Burning Wheel), but dammit, sometimes it's fun to have a beer and pretzels session.

Tell me about your board game experiences. The good, the bad and the nerdy--all are welcome to hear about.

And some links to the games I mentioned:

D&D
Burning Wheel
Dominion
Magic the Gathering
Fluxx
...Chess

M.A.D.X.W · May 2, 2010

I used to play Stratego often?
Yu Gi Oh

I like how you have a link to chess. Most people don't know what that is.

DarQraven · May 2, 2010

Already made a thread about this a while ago. But meh.

My faves:

Heroscape (Currently own 7 base sets, 2 expansions and the new D&D masterset.
Dominion + Intrigue (+Eventually Seaside, Prosperity and Alchemy when they get off their asses and translate them to Dutch. It's a been a year already, damnit.)
Citadels (Called Machiavelli outside the English-speaking world). Great game of guessing, double guessing and some light strategy thrown in.

Recently bought Roborally and Puerto Rico. Still have to try the latter, but Roborally is already a huge hit.
Still have Dungeon Lords lying around, rules are a bit too complex to introduce my friends to before they're comfortable playing Puerto Rico. Theme is awesome, though.

Roommate bought Blue Moon and Munchkin expansion last friday. Still have to play those.

So yeah, those are really only the 'non-standard' games. I could add Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Monopoly, etc to this list but I think everyone's got those.

dragonfliet · May 2, 2010

When I was twelve I used to play Vampire: The Masquerade with my next door neighbor and some of his friends. I have a feeling we were doing it wrong. Every time we would have a party member with maxed contacts and we would go to a gun store to see if they had anything for us to do and we'd head off on elaborate missions of shooting **** up.

We even had a van with a machine gun mounted to the floor in the back and when pursued would open up the back doors and let it rip.

We played for a few months before getting bored with the silly set up and I never played a pen and paper RPG again.

~Jason

anaemic · May 2, 2010

[screenshot]http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6174/emotreject.gif[/screenshot]

Firefly · May 2, 2010

back in the day i used to play d&d, car wars and warhammer.

No hatin' here

igNiTion · May 2, 2010

i've always wanted to get super blazed and then play some in-depth pen and paper rpg, the type where you make up the story... no clue where to start though

Forgetful · May 2, 2010

I enjoy Magic The Gathering. I had just over $2K in cards at one point, but I sold them to pay for school. I still keep a deck around to play with my friends every once and a while though.

DarQraven · May 2, 2010

igNiTion said:
i've always wanted to get super blazed and then play some in-depth pen and paper rpg, the type where you make up the story... no clue where to start though

One of the disadvantages of P&P RPG's is that you REALLY need an experienced GM to explain everything and lead the game if you want your first experience to be an enjoyable one.
I tried D&D once with some friends and there was just so much mucking about with stats and rules and die rolls that we never even got to the storytelling part before we got bored. Having someone take the reins and do that for you is an entirely different experience.

Similarly, I could never get into Warhammer/ non-heroscape-miniature wargames, for the reason that you REALLY need to spend a ****ton of money on an army before the game actually becomes fun.
Sure, pitting 3 orc raiders against 3 Space Marines is fun .. for one or two matches. Same thing applies to Magic:TG.

Blue moon, while significantly less expansive than Magic, offers me the same kind of experience for merely 30 dollars worth of base set. Additional decks are bought as entire decks, no random purchases (You don't use them as preset decks though, so the freedom to construct your own decks is still there). Some people call it the poor man's Magic. I'd prefer to call Magic the rich geeks cardgame.

Kaal979 · May 2, 2010

My best favorite is Mutant Chronicles Warzone!!!

AMmayhem · May 2, 2010

D&D
Euchre
Pictionary when drunk at parties
Drunkball
Cribbage
Apples to Apples

Those are probably the most common anyway, have played several others in my life.

BITE_ME · May 2, 2010

Strip Poker.

Adelheid · May 2, 2010

Kneel.

ambershee · May 2, 2010

I used to play Magic, back in the Portal days - but then they started releasing entire new sets every 3-4 months that'd almost always wipe the floor with previous sets, meaning you had to keep buying the damned things if you wanted to keep competitive with other people playing the game.

That said, I do have a deck knocking about somewhere that's relatively capable of taking out my opponent on the first turn. Combining some of the real old cards with some from the newer sets can be nasty (and probably banned in tournament play, lol).

As for Warhammer, I used to play a lot of 40k, but it's the same deal as before. Games Workshop have just gotten greedy and are wondering why their sales are plummeting. It wasn't that long ago that single miniatures were around £3-4, or £6-7 for 'heroes' and other more unusual stuff - but now the same things will cost you twice as much.

Not to mention the game rules have been given a good tarring with the retarded brush to the point where it's just not enjoyable to play anymore. Couple that with absolutely no direction within the design team itself, and you end up with **** loads of inconsistent rules that just don't work with each other, and ones that cater for entirely different directions within the development of the game too. It's awful.

Worst of all, deliberately big changes in rules between revisions are being used as an excuse to render older collections invalid or useless, or to push players into buying new products that shouldn't be required to play (or in many cases, both).

BITE_ME · May 2, 2010

ambershee said:
I used to play Magic, back in the Portal days - but then they started releasing entire new sets every 3-4 months that'd almost always wipe the floor with previous sets, meaning you had to keep buying the damned things if you wanted to keep competitive with other people playing the game.

That said, I do have a deck knocking about somewhere that's relatively capable of taking out my opponent on the first turn. Combining some of the real old cards with some from the newer sets can be nasty (and probably banned in tournament play, lol).

As for Warhammer, I used to play a lot of 40k, but it's the same deal as before. Games Workshop have just gotten greedy and are wondering why their sales are plummeting. It wasn't that long ago that single miniatures were around £3-4, or £6-7 for 'heroes' and other more unusual stuff - but now the same things will cost you twice as much.

Not to mention the game rules have been given a good tarring with the retarded brush to the point where it's just not enjoyable to play anymore. Couple that with absolutely no direction within the design team itself, and you end up with **** loads of inconsistent rules that just don't work with each other, and ones that cater for entirely different directions within the development of the game too. It's awful.

Worst of all, deliberately big changes in rules between revisions are being used as an excuse to render older collections invalid or useless, or to push players into buying new products that shouldn't be required to play (or in many cases, both).

That sucks.
Just play Chess. No upgrades ever needed, and you can play with a person who does not speak your language

d3tox · May 2, 2010

My first thought when I saw this thread was "HAHAHAHA hippy D&D players". Kind of a side effect of a couple people I know...

I played the Star Wars CCG myself, here if you haven't heard of it prior to now. At one time I was in the top 25 in the world in this game. This was mostly a result of playing often vs the #2 player in the world, all in sanctioned tourneys. I played a few regionals to try to go to worlds, finished in the top 10 most of the time, but never made worlds.

Sometime right before EP1 came out, lucas pulled the plug on the new prequel sets, prior to this I sunk cash into a lot of SW games without question. I will never forgive him for this, and may he burn.

hal · May 2, 2010

I played D&D back in the 70's so I'm kinda partial to the early Greyhawk era on into the early 80's.

S1 Tomb of Horrors (1978)
G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (1978)
G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl (1978)
G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King (1978)
D1 Descent into the Depths of the Earth (1978)
D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa (1978)
D3 Vault of the Drow (1978)
T1 The Village of Hommlet (1978)
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (1980)
A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity (1980)
A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade (1981)
A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords (1981 )
A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords (1981)
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits (1980)
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (1980)
C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness (1980)

Sjosz · May 2, 2010

Am part of a group that does Dragon Age's pen&paper RPG and I have to say that I rather enjoy it. It's not as deeply worked out yet as D&D is, and the rules are somewhat different (no d20 attack rolls, but 3d6). Been playing for a couple months now that the rulebooks etc are out and it really is pretty great to extend the DA universe beyond the videogame.

Trynant · May 2, 2010

DarQraven said:
....
Dominion + Intrigue (+Eventually Seaside, Prosperity and Alchemy when they get off their asses and translate them to Dutch. It's a been a year already, damnit.)

Recently bought Roborally and Puerto Rico. Still have to try the latter, but Roborally is already a huge hit.
Still have Dungeon Lords lying around, rules are a bit too complex to introduce my friends to before they're comfortable playing Puerto Rico. Theme is awesome, though.
...
So yeah, those are really only the 'non-standard' games. I could add Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Monopoly, etc to this list but I think everyone's got those.

I searched for a thread an never found one, sorry

I really want the expansion(s) to Dominion. I have the basic version right now and my friends like it a lot, but we've gotten to the point where we've played and replayed all the cards (even the broken ones). Villages are annoying >:(

Roborally is great fun, but Puerto Rico is just fantastically spectacular. Probably my favorite board game. Get your friends to play it!

I think it's worth mentioning Catan and Carcasonne because they're borderline specialty. Catan I like (Puerto Rico is better by a mile IMO), but Carcasonne is too random without enough of a theme for me to enjoy.

ambershee said:
That said, I do have a deck knocking about somewhere that's relatively capable of taking out my opponent on the first turn. Combining some of the real old cards with some from the newer sets can be nasty (and probably banned in tournament play, lol).

There are several tournament play rules, two of which allow cards from every single release barring the joke ones (albeit certain cards are listed that you can only have one of or plain can't use). Who knows, your deck might still be pr0.

As for Warhammer, I used to play a lot of 40k, but it's the same deal as before. Games Workshop have just gotten greedy and are wondering why their sales are plummeting. It wasn't that long ago that single miniatures were around £3-4, or £6-7 for 'heroes' and other more unusual stuff - but now the same things will cost you twice as much.

Used to be a Warhammer person, but suffered from the same problem. Way to taxing of a hobby if you ask me.

hal said:
S1 Tomb of Horrors (1978)

My God that dungeon scares me. The Return to the Tomb of Horrors for 2nd Edition Revised seemed like an entire campaign bent on the player's demise. The 3rd (3.5?) remake looked terrible and (terribly) nerfed, however.

Sjosz said:
Am part of a group that does Dragon Age's pen&paper RPG and I have to say that I rather enjoy it. It's not as deeply worked out yet as D&D is, and the rules are somewhat different (no d20 attack rolls, but 3d6). Been playing for a couple months now that the rulebooks etc are out and it really is pretty great to extend the DA universe beyond the videogame.

Dragon Age RPG? Will have to check this out >.>

Thrash123 · May 2, 2010

Used to play D&D and Shadowrun, but nowadays it's just simple fun with random friends playing either Apples to Apples (Apples to Oranges, as we called it - you played the person, not the card), or Texas Hold Em'.

...Tabletop Gaming

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