I really disliked Elder Sign. There is little strategy involved, it relies too much on lucky dice rolls and it's frankly boring. It's not at all like Arkham Horror, not even as a "shorter version" of it, it's completely different, the only similarity is in the flavour text and character names.

Mansions is not bad. It's a bit shorter than Arkham but just as mean. I remember when our friend was the Keeper, and I was one of the heroes, playing the gangster guy with the tommy gun. I didn't even get to use it, cause he forced me to do some dice check early on and if I failed the gun broke and I lost it. Guess what happened.

hehe. I love MoM. I tend to play the keeper a lot, I'm kinda relentless when it gets to fucking the players over (like any Elder Thing or Ancient God would be) and my friends seem to like it and respect it. Our games can be very short sometimes but when the players succeed they're really proud and I think that's fucking ace

Knowing your luck Morri...you got to keep the gun and it was crucial in your victory?

Mansions is kinda similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill, but it's a bit better. 'cause being the traitor in Betrayal can be really tough! Like Morri didn't want to give me my dessert because I was the traitor

Also, after 4 games of Ghost Stories, we're starting to understand the game! We might win in like 2 or 3 games!

Mansions is kinda similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill, but it's a bit better. 'cause being the traitor in Betrayal can be really tough! Like Morri didn't want to give me my dessert because I was the traitor

Also, after 4 games of Ghost Stories, we're starting to understand the game! We might win in like 2 or 3 games!

I'm aware that there are RPGs based on the Warhammer settings, it's just that the wargames are far more popular and I always assumed that's what Bolt Thrower were playing...



Well, define "casual player". Arkham Horror is relatively complex, but I don't think it's completely inaccessible. As Tony said, it definitely helps if at least one person around the table is familiar with the rules. It's actually possible to play the game alone, so you could try a solo game before playing with group so you can explain it to them (if everyone is unfamiliar with the game). The most important part is to learn what happens in each game phase, and follow the phases to the letter when you play. A lot of newbie questions are easily resolved this way (e.g. "I move to a location where there is a gate and a monster, do I need to fight the monster before going through the gate?" Combat happens in phase 2 (movement), going through the gate happens in phase 3 (Arkham encounters) so you do need to fight or sneak the monster before you can go through the gate - just an extremely common question on Arkham forums).

Elder Sign is indeed much, much faster, and much simpler. It's also not very fun in my opinion.

Being a newbie, I didn't find Arkham Horror all that complicated, it's well structured and doesn't contain too too much to remember. I do find having to fight a ''boss'' of sorts at the end if you've failed at your other goals to be somewhat anti-climactic though.

Haha, I wish. Not only did my gun break before I even got to use it once, but later I was at 0 sanity and the Keeper threw me a madness card at me, forcing me to do a will check, which, if I failed, my character just plain died. I had 9 of will (think I had 7 base + a bonus from an item or something), so the only way for me to fail was to roll a 10 on the d10.

Guess what I rolled.


Oh yeah, in that particular game, we were literally 1 HP away from winning before we ran out of turns to defeat the monster. One more punch, even without a weapon, and it was done. Evil, evil game.

First time I played Arkham Horror it was my copy and none of us knew anything. We had 6 people. It was chaos and I got a headache, but after that it was all downhill. It's not a hard game to understand, you just gotta get the basics. Don't play with a large number of people your first time! I'd think about 4 would be ideal.

This answers my question, thank you sir. I guess I just meant by 'casual' that there would be some players with no real board game experience beyond Candy Land, Monopoly and maybe Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride, mixed with others who RPG on a normal basis and are more used to complex rule sets.

It sounds pretty fun to me as a Lovecraft fan, and frankly I thought the box and the value looked more worthwhile than Elder Sign, so thanks again all for the tips!

I’m going to get a copy of Akrham Horror in a few months to help me and my friends while away the coming winter. I’ll probably try playing a round or two myself to figure it out before having a group game.

Also, the Romulan expansion to Star Trek: Fleet Capitains comes out next month. STOKED.

Hey, autothrall, ever tried the old-school Illuminati? Not the collectible, the original?

The best game ever to get rid of your friends.

I still need to buy Arkham Horror as well, played it once and loved it!

The Steve Jackson card game, based on the books? I think I played it once when I was very young, can't say I appreciated it as much as I might now.

Paranoia and Car Wars were also great ways of losing friends.

thanks guys

EDIT: so I made an account on roll20.net
now what? I have zero experience hahaha
anybody wanna play something with me and teach me or something?

I wanna do sword and sorcery stuff, stuff that I can really get into. but yeah like I said, no experience
any recs for games, rulebooks (preferably ones I can download or find online or somethin'), etc>?

Used to play a lot of RISK when I was in high school... *thinks back* good times, good times...

Don't really play anything at the moment.

I really like Dark Heresy and its spin offs, but in all honesty if you are not already completely immersed in the background its probably not the best place to start. the backstory is so involved that you might well find yourself arguing with your GM and group if you try and do things that logically make sense but conflict with the "feel" of the universe it's set in.

It's true, I always have a problem finding interest around here for pen & paper Warhammer (or any non-D&D/Star Wars RPG, honestly). The universe has such a rich history that should be browsed at least to get that 'feel'. I've offered friends my stack of Horus Heresy and Inquisitor novels to take home and they just shook their heads. Big commitment. Lots of fluff, even in just the wargame guides. The video game versions might be easier introductions (Space Marine and the Dark Crusade strategy games aren't bad, and with the former one could start bolt throwing almost immediately).

Still, count your lucky stars. Outside a select few people here, there is virtually NO interest in any RPG whatsoever

*coughs* Personally, I find pretty much all of the Warhammer 40k novels too poorly written to actually grasp the feel of the universe. A lot of them seem to humanize these larger-than-life characters too much. The Horus Heresy especially puts into human terms these superhuman beings that are above and beyond anything comprehensible. They were legends and should have stayed as such. Would've been better for the fluff of the game. Then again, I've only really played the game back in the 90s and early 00s so... The only books that I've read that captured that feel of the universe was the Deathwing anthology as well as the Space Marine novel from way back in the mid-90s. Those were actually good books with actual thought into them rather than product line novels written by ha... Well, let's not use that word.

Well, the humanization of many of these characters (in The Horus Heresy) is actually what I loved most about the books. All legends start somewhere, so I thought it was a nice touch to scratch below the surface of the very disaffected, violent themes of the 40K universe, for once, without abandoning the various struggles and genocidal tones of the conquest and expansion. Plenty of interaction scenes among the leads, but still packed with gruesome action and warfare. I also liked that they started to shift around to various factions instead of following the central thread. But that said, Mac, I do agree with you that they feel like a 'product line' of sorts, and not nearly on the level of a lot of original sci-fi authors which I read. I don't enjoy them all evenly, preferring some of the names over others, and I'm probably about 6-7 books behind the one they just released. I do usually like Abnett and McNeill, who have matured from their older books (which were often cringeworthy) and now moved on to other original properties (and, at least for Abnett, comics). I've read a few other 40K series that I enjoy, but mileage varies. I do like them considerably more than most of the Fantasy novels (though that is probably a subject for the lit thread).

I don't have a ton of experience with the tabletop wargame, I once put together an army of Dark Eldar thanks to contributions from friends and bargain shopping, and have probably watched dozens of competitions that friends had joined while I was at University (and played a handful of matches); but I got into the setting more through reading the fluff, the books, playing the computer games and the tabletop RPGs.

Anyway, as an addendum to my earlier query about Arkham Horror, does anyone have any tabletop dungeon crawler recommendations? I've seen a lot of big, pretty boxes in stores, but beyond the newer D&D sets, and the original Dungeon board game (and HeroQuest) I've not gotten to try most of them.

Woh! I'm not even here and my thread is active!

Me too! I remember looking through army books in the hobby store when i was way too little to afford them, it's awesome that you've been reading the Heresy series too. I'm fully current on it if you had questions or were looking for someone to discuss it with you. Warhammer is like the best sci-fi universe and one of the best fantasy ones, I still don't understand how people view the authors as hacks. I understand some of the books are just selling models but to classify all of them that way is kind of stretching it. As for the Warhammer RPG I've ran a couple games and might do more in the distant future.

As for MacMoney, glad you finally gave something approaching a reason for why you don't like 40k books, I still would have a list of them to recommend to you based on what you like about the storyline.

Um well, firstly tabletop RPGs are generally not something you can go "hey, let's play D&D!" (for instance) without any preparation. Just creating the player characters can be a matter of hours in some games, then of course the game master needs to come up with an interesting adventure for the players to play through, which can be quite time-consuming.

Admittedly, I haven't used roll20.net before. I just looked through the features at some point and it looked like the best system to play tabletop games online that I had seen. I assume that they have some way to find groups needing players that you could use if you're so inclined.



Hmm, well for fantasy stuff, I don't really have experience with games other than D&D. It is the most popular RPG, so eh, could be a good place to start. The books are not necessarily cheap, but... well, it's quite easy to find perhaps-less-than-legal PDF copies online, if you just want to check out what it's like. You should start with the Player's Handbook - and that's actually the only one you really need if you're not the dungeon master.

Of course, now Napero will tell you that D&D is crap and that you shouldn't play it, so I'll let him give more recommendations. Actually there's an idea, you just bug Napero until he runs a game for you. I'd play too...

Played a couple rounds of 7 Wonders last night. Pretty fun, although I haven't won yet. First game I got fucked by militaries on both sides, second game went really fast and I didn't even realize it, had next to nothing by the third age. Oops.

Just get all the green cards you can.

Definitely gonna be my strategy next time I play. Science for the win.

I think if you read the first 3 books in the Heresy series you'd change your mind slightly. They dont "humanize" the primarchs very much at all - in fact they are not major characters for the most part. They are usually seen at a distance while the protagonists are "spear carriers": more relatable human or astartes who are witnessing the events but not "in the drivers seat" so to speak.

Some of the writing in the Black Library books is dross, no argument about it. And, with the possible exception of Dan Abnett, have never had a "legit" author working for them of the calibre of Ian Watson. But there are some real gems hidden amongst them that really capture the atmosphere and ethos of the background. dont get me wrong, I love Space Marine, the Inquisitor trilogy and the Deathwing anthology. But in some ways they have been legitimately surpassed. The "Eisenhorn" books, for example, are a great look at what the inquisition actually does and what day to day life in the imperium is actually like away from the huge battlefields. Similarly, "Lord of the night" is both a cool look at hive society a la Necromunda as well as a clever insight into the motivations of heretics and cultists. If you want I can suggest 10 or so which would change your mind I think - its never going to be high literature, but as far as engaging and dark pulp fiction there is a lot to like in their catalogue.

Played Catan with HB yesterday. Quite fun, I know it's a legendary game but I was only familiar with the card game (we played it after our 3rd player left and I won! Thanks to my mint!)

I'll note some differences between the two (the originals with no expansions)
-Settlers of Catan is a board game (3-4 players, you need to buy another expansion to play with 5-6, kind of bullshit, but yeah, capitalism!). So, it feels a bit more interactive and there's a real competion between the players to build their roads, settlements and cities on the map while the card game doesn't have this.
-The card game has gold in addition of the other ressources (wood, ore...), I think this gaves a versality the board game doesn't have. The board game has the same ressources except this one...
-I prefer the knight system of the card game, but there's probably an improved system in the knights and cities expansion for Settlers of Catan
-In the card game, you can win 2 tokens (1 victory point each, you need 12 to win). One is the knight token, the other is the windmill token, both given by specific cards. The board game gives you 2 VP points for knights and 2 VP to the player who has the longest road (I think this is a bit futile, but I guess it's pushing you to develop your settlements).

Anyway, both great games. But I think the conceptors of Settlers of Catan made some sacrifice for playability's sake compared to the card game. Still very fun!

We also tried Ghost Stories again, two more losses. Fuck, this game is hard and we only play at easy...

Hey, I played Settlers Of Catan as a kid. Good times. We did have an expansion that brought gold to the (board)game though. I think it came with the Seafarers expansion, which also had water-"roads" (little ships) to connect different islands.

New Chaos Codex came out today. It's actually pretty decent IMO.

The new models in the 40k starter set are fuckin amazing. They've come so far with what they can do with plastic molds, it's incredible. I love the old school jump packs on the new assault marines too that's a nice touch.

Yeah, I've got the new starter set queued up for painting after I finish some other stuff (2 Valkyries and 6 Krieg heavy weapons teams to do first). It really is pretty spectacular.

Fucking Ghost Stories

hehehe!

Yesterday: I played Smallworld against HB and I won! WOOOO. Thanks to my seafaring trolls! I got my ass kicked at Settlers of Catan (with Necro and HB) and we played dominion and Ghost Stories (yeah, fuck this game!)

Today: I tried The Republic of Rome with some friends from the university, very cool game, quite complex and I still need to learn the basics and shit, but I liked my first experience. We played the first of the 3 era, it was more of a cooperative game, but there's still a winner at the end (the one with the most influence). The game revolves around the senators you have, who's becoming the field or Rome consul or who's becoming a dictator. There's a lot of interaction between the players, there's alliances, back stabbing and destroyed friendships for the sake of the Empire!!

I'm not so much a boardgamer (anymore) but this is too good to not share it here and possibly buy it myself.

Anyone here heard of "Cave Evil"? Just stumbled upon it and it looks awesome. A board game with the optic falvour of old school DM / BM demo cover art. Hell Yeah!



They even sell merchandise like shirts and backpatches - how cool is that???

http://www.cave-evil.com/merch

So, what is the game about? Here it goes:



some impressions:

^ That looks intriguing... but it also seems to be as difficult to obtain as a black metal demo. :/

The board is a poster though, I know it was cheaper, but meh.

Wow that game looks friggin' awesome! It's an uber shame there aren't a lot of good places here to play board games, the best one closed down. My boyfriend is a really big fan of Warmachine (kind of a Warhammer Fantasy thing). Board games are fun, but I wish a lot of them didn't have so many rules you need to learn. That Cave Evil game sounds incredibly interesting though, it makes me want to play it. I only wish I wouldn't play it with just one person if I ever got it, though