Tabletop Games

[Psychotime]

Eh, why not another one? Regardless of the topic of one thread, I'm certain that a significant amount of the people who enjoy and/or make fantasy imagery have hobbies involving tabletop games of some kind.

So why not a thread about them?

I guess it's odd on my part, given the fact that I don't do fantasy imagery myself. At all.

Regardless, I'm a fan of card games, and have attempted to get into tabletop rpgs to some degree (mostly failing, but hey).

I think most people my age started off with the Pokemon card game, then "graduated" to more complex games like Magic. And I guess I fit that boat. I've also played games like VS System (which I still love) and Yugioh (which has disappointed me and made me leave for good).

Last year I finally returned to Magic: The Gathering after phasing out (heh) for about 5 years. I'm very much a Vorthos, and my interest in the game is based on the block settings and flavor more than anything else. But I still try to keep up with the current lead designer's articles on game design and theory, and the more I've read and learned, I'm honestly convinced that as a game concept, Magic was perfectly designed, and that's really amazing when you realize that it was the first of it's kind.

While I missed out on Innistrad (which I've discovered is REALLY fun in limited, like the most I've ever had) I'm definitely interested in Theros, and can't wait for the previews we'll be getting next week for Born of the Gods.

To some degree I tolerate it in Magic, but I've honestly grown sick and tired of the TCG business model and the secondary market that exists as a side effect of it. I hate the idea of a single piece of paper going for $40-80. It's a god damn piece of paper. And unless we're talking legitimate collection standards involving old out of print products, it should not exist, in my opinion. I could do a full rant on this topic, but I won't.

I've been looking into trying different games, and the current line of Fantasy Flight games have caught my attention. They're part of a new move to reject the random distribution model in favor of a clear fixed distribution. A core game has all of it's cards in the set, ready for two players to use right out of the box and customize as they like, and new cards are released in fixed packs if you want them.

The games they have under this model (trademarked as Living Card Games) are all licensed. Currently there's a remake of Netrunner (created by the person who created Magic), Star Wars, Cthulhu, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Warhammer.

Of those, I find the Star Wars and Cthulhu games the most interesting. I might pick them up.

Each of the games listed have complete and concise tutorial videos on Fantasy Flight's youtube channel, so it's a good way to gauge if it's interesting to you or not.

Does anyone have opinions on them?

[Doolio]

I see tabletop games (along with pnp rpgs for example) as some kind of love that wasn't meant to be:)

Now, I don't have much time (a conscious decision, but it doesn't change anything) and back when I was really hyped about them (when I was like 20-25), I didn't have luck with finding right people. Basically, my friends were not that hyped about it, but we did pull out a couple of dnd sessions and some mtg matches... and about the less complex (and less "geeky" lol) games, we actually played a bit more of them (for example, the enriched version of risk, risk 2070 or something like that, I forgot).

So, I was mainly like "oooh, oooh, a rpg session, I'll gm it omg omg" and I created this whole world with like living cities and maps and stuff and we played like three sessions altogether and that was it.

And I remember lamenting over my fate, especially when I found out about The Window, (I think it was a diceless system), the rpg system which relies on storytelling of both the gm and the players and it has A LOT of freedom. Of course, I never got to play it:)

Now, I don't think there is a "best period" in one's life to be mad about tabletop games, but for me, all that did deflate me a bit regarding the subject. So, now, I still like it, but I don't think I would ever be able to make some significant effort to, you know, search for people, mingle with community, make a "once a week" meetings, learn new games and stuff like that. Now I am more likely to get interested about some game that's easy to get into and doesn't require a lot of maintenance in any sense.

But, being a person that tends to fantasize a lot, I do feel captivated but the whole universe of tabletop games, especially the ones that give you more freedom, like rpg's or deck building card games.

Although, that fixed distribution card system does sound like some easy to learn - hard to master kind of thing which could be played leisurely.

Speaking of leisurely, I got the beta key for Hearthstone and I find the game perfect for my current situation. It's easy, it has a bit of luck factor and yet it can be quite competitive, it's polished and pleasant to the eye, matches last for like 5-8 mins, you play against random opponents, there's not much communication involved etc.
So it really is a game for a leisurely coffee break once or twice a day. Something like a game for your average 50yo mom and a 20yo competitive ccg player both.

[darktiste]

magic the gathering online for people who are lazy you can play on the xbox or on the computer and you have different kind of style of game in one online trading game card. Not free but it the ''advantage'' is that it not physic card so it easier to browser you're collection and i think you can sell account and trade i am not sure of that.I quit magic because i lost my interest. I was more interest in casual play because i didnt want to spend trillion on paper card.After a few years the place where we use to play change ownership and it was the down fall for the casual group.I still enjoy buying card time to time to try the new mechanic they add to the game. But for me the community where i use to play is brainwashed to buy more more more to gain chance to get promo card and win booster. My true love is deckbuilding there is so much card i love it.It fun because you have to make decision optimization observation.You learn to understand how to play you're deck and sometime you have surprise when people talk about stuff you didn't know about.So i think my true love is more precisely tweaking.

[Psychotime]

Speaking of online games, my roommate showed me some game called Solforge, and I have no idea what on earth he sees in it. Like, at all.

It's such a boring simplistic game with jarring inconsistent flavor, and in a boring way, not the awesome way Yugioh does it.* And the part that makes the question harder to answer is the fact that my roommate is very much a competitive Magic player. He actually bothered with the Pro Tour back in the day to help pay for some of his undergrad.

As I said before, I'm a casual player, and I find that his competitive mindset sucks some of the fun out of the game. So how the hell does he find a game like Solforge appealing when it's simplicity turns ME away?

*Yugioh naturally has scatterbrained flavor given it's origin, but some segments of it are actually appealing, and the lack of a universal "style" makes for wildly different archetypes with their own visual appeal that no other game would do.

They'll have a set of cards about cute princesses made out of desserts, and then costumed superheros in another set! Yugioh does this all the time and no one bats an eye at it. Name any other game where you can have a disconnect like this?

Spoiler

(Also, if there's one thing that I've ALWAYS hated about Yugioh, it's the fact that they don't name their artists. It's a serious shame.)

Instead of going to the extreme and being awesome for it, all Solforge does is mix generic sci-fi with generic fantasy. The art is good, but that doesn't make it interesting.

[Rognoll]

I've played tabletop rpgs, tabletop wargames and TCGs since I was like 12, I'm a huuuuge dork in that aspect.

I've played and mastered D&D (pathfinder now, becasue 4th ed sucked) for a long time, and I must say I don't know how my imagination would even work if not for them. I find roleplay games to be a huge source of creative "fuel" My skills might be far off my goal yet, but I've never ran out of ideas ever since I play tabletop stuff. Specially when I've been the GM.

Plus it's fun once you get rid of the "oh what a nerd" prejudice. Or when you find the right people, I've seen countless cases like Doolio's. It can be hard to find a table, but I really, really personally recomend everyone to at least try them.

Last year I finally returned to Magic: The Gathering after phasing out (heh) for about 5 years. I'm very much a Vorthos, and my interest in the game is based on the block settings and flavor more than anything else. But I still try to keep up with the current lead designer's articles on game design and theory, and the more I've read and learned, I'm honestly convinced that as a game concept, Magic was perfectly designed, and that's really amazing when you realize that it was the first of it's kind.

Yeah! I'm a vorthos too! That's why my decks usually suck.
Anyway, great art + great game design = Epicness. I love magic the gathering, but I hate how trecherous they are when it comes to business. It's not only about the price of the cards as you mentioned and I get that they must keep the money flowing, but sometimes it is just ridiculous.

You can spend $200-$500 to build a top notch deck one year, and find that 6 months later, it SUCKS, because of the new mechanics that have been introduced recently that are waaay better than the ones your deck uses. Also, if your deck is fairly old, you can't use it for standard tournaments (or even modern sometimes) which are, as you might guess, the vast majority of them.

But for me the community where i use to play is brainwashed to buy more more more to gain chance to get promo card and win booster

Yes! Exactly!

[Psychotime]

I love magic the gathering, but I hate how trecherous they are when it comes to business. It's not only about the price of the cards as you mentioned and I get that they must keep the money flowing, but sometimes it is just ridiculous.

You can spend $200-$500 to build a top notch deck one year, and find that 6 months later, it SUCKS, because of the new mechanics that have been introduced recently that are waaay better than the ones your deck uses. Also, if your deck is fairly old, you can't use it for standard tournaments (or even modern sometimes) which are, as you might guess, the vast majority of them.

It's not directly the company's fault that this stuff happens. In fact, they don't get ANY of that money. Believe it or not, the secondary market that jacks up card prices does NOTHING on their end. When those people are the only ones buying Magic, the company LOSES money.

It's all a side effect of the way trading card games work.

The existence of formats and old cards rotating out is a necessary evil, for the life and balance of the game. It has to happen, lest the game turn into what Yugioh has become.

Rotating sets does multiple things that all result in positives for the game. The most obvious is that the new cards automatically become relevant, but it's deeper than that. It forces variety in tournaments and changes the metagame each time. It gives them the freedom to experiment (with design styles, mechanics, and the metagame itself) without worrying about being locked down to previous cards. It prevents mistakenly broken cards (like the original power 9) from dominating for too long. And it prevents the need for power creep in order to make the new cards relevant.

The fact of the matter is, new cards must be relevant in order for people to have incentive to buy them, and rotating older sets out of tournaments is a much better way of doing it than the alternative, and has added bonuses.

Look at the metagame to the Vintage/Legacy format and you'll understand what Magic would be like if sets never rotated. It'd be a nightmare if the new cards had to make themselves relevant in that format.

This is where Modern comes in, as a bit of a compromise between Vintange and Standard. It's a pool of the last 10 years of Magic, with all the cards largely balanced against each other because of the time period they were designed. By and large, the new cards aren't stronger than the old cards. (Though some cards are banned for good reason. Sometimes it's how an old card combos with a newer card.) Looking at the way they police certain old cards in Modern should be eye opening, and you'll see the kind of problems that arise from a larger and larger pool of cards completely by accident.

Yugioh decided NOT to rotate sets, making all cards legal in every format (outside of the constantly changing banlist). And because of that, they have to make each new set stronger than the last in order to make people buy them, and it's disgusting. It's the exact reason I stopped playing. Outside of that, it's an adequate game with a few design problems.

You can have a perfectly viable deck one year, maybe two; and then the next year the new cards are so overpowered that you can't even compete in a casual setting against the new archetypes they want you to buy. I LIKED my zombie recursion deck, Konami. I LIKED my Gradius deck. I would have given the Maldoche a chance, but now you want to FORCE me to buy them in order to play even a casual setting because my previous decks are suddenly weak? Hell no. The second I do that, you'll just make THAT obsolete and force me to buy new cards again!

[Peppermint Butler]

Just downloaded Hearthstone yesterday, it is crack, stay away! It's so good tho...damn

[Rognoll]

@Psychotime:

1- Ok, I get your point, rotating sets is a necessary evil.
2-Every new set is more powerful than the last one! What you described for yu gi oh in the last paragraph happens today in magic.
3-Are you kidding? Legacy is awesome! I've never seen two decks that are alike in a legacy torunament. It embraces the true feel of magic, you really get the "planeswalker" thing.

[Psychotime]

Our experiences seem to be completely opposite in this regard. I always run into overpowered cards and combos in Legacy, and I'm not seeing what you're saying about the new sets. Even the Urza's Block cards that are legal are still noticably overpowered.

I started at Time Spiral, then left during Alara. Then returned during Return to Ravnica. I'm still not seeing any problems in a casual setting. The only disconnect is when I go against competitive players, but that's a given.

And the aformentioned Urza's block makes it clear. Some of the stuff in Urza's Block gives me nightmares. If you really say they make new cards stronger, look at the MANY horribly busted cards that were printed during Urza's Block.

Of those, the only card banned is Tinker. The rest are still legal.

Spoiler

These are all UNCOMMONS and a COMMONS! The graveyard stuff is the most shocking.

If you really think that the stuff they print now is nearly as powerful as stuff like this, I really don't know what to tell you other than really look at the stuff they print now in comparison to what they used to make before Modern.

[Rognoll]

Indeed, it seems we do have different experiences.

I'm a little out of tune with magic, but I'm sure I have seen cards that do things these ones do, but better/cheaper*
Urza's saga has a bad reputation, but I think it's overrated.

Anyway, what kind of decks do you use?

*mana-wise

[Psychotime]

G/W more often than anything else.

I'm a big fan of token swarm.

Currently I just use a (sorta) standard (actually block) Selesyna Populate, and a modern Jund Devour that I'm still tweaking. Building in any format larger than standard is a bit difficult, I must say. There are alot of options that are right under your nose.

[Rognoll]

Argh! saprolin swarm? I have lost patheticaly to those time and time again.

Well, building a jund deck (if it's not pre-made) itself is difficult. I aimed for a jund deck some years ago and I failed horribly (plus, it was too expensive)

I use goblins, I love the tiny bastards. I know the strategy for a "goblin deck" varies from edition to edition (curse you innistrad, curse you!) but as I said, I'm a helpless vorthos.

[Psychotime]

Token decks are very easy for black to deal with, if you know what you're up against beforehand.

[Psychotime]

Somehow, Wizards kept a serious leash on Journey to Nyx, cause not a single thing was leaked before official previews began.

The two new mechanics are both ability words. A triggered ability that everyone wanted (not like there's much design space for it, so I understand saving it for the final set) and a kicker variant. Monstrosity also returns.




Damn, Iroas is really good.

[Madzia]

D&D handbooks pushed me to art. I have super nostalgic feelings for bestiaries. Unfortunately as a girl I was never allowed to participate in RPG sessions that my friends had. But at least they where letting me paint some miniatures! Painting miniatures is still my huge love besides illustration and currently when all rpg board games include miniatures too I buy from time to time new title.

I love Talisman (I had 3th edition as a kid!), Runebound, DungeonQuest.
Carcassonne is super cool but it's more logic board game :D
I never was into card games but nobody from my circle was in it, so I never have opportunity to learn about it enough.

[Psychotime]

Magic has announced that Standard and normal block structure are changing in fall of 2015.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/arc...amorphosis

Change #1: Beginning in the Fall of 2015, Magic Blocks Will Be Two Sets Each
Change #2: Beginning in the Fall of 2015, Magic Will Have Two Blocks Per Year
Change #3: Beginning in 2016, the Core Sets Are No More
Change #4: Beginning in 2016, the First Set of Each Block (the Fall and Spring Sets) Will Cause a Rotation
Change #5: Beginning in 2016, Standard Will Be Three Blocks Rather Than Two Blocks

The article explains the motivations behind the change, and the problems that they've had for years (that people paying attention would have heard brought up again and again) that these changes will fix.

It's things like this that make Magic deserve the success that it has. It never becomes complacent with problems and always seeks to improve itself every year.

I must say, I wonder how the game will feel without core sets. I never bothered with them at first, but now I've since grown to liking them, after the cool stuff they've been doing with them. I wonder how they'll treat the final one. You can assume they'll try to go out with a bang.

[StardustLarva]

On the subject of card games, anyone here play Yu-Gi-Oh? I used to play it a lot when I was younger, but I recently took to playing it again occasionally after I found sites to play it online. All the generic anime bullshit aside, Yu-Gi-Oh actually has some pretty nifty monster designs and concepts. Plus some of the illustrations are wonderful. In particular I like the Naturia and Frog cards, they're pretty fun to play with.

[Psychotime]

I used to enjoy Yugioh quite a bit, despite some glaring flaws in it's design.

It started as a haphazard mess due to the fact that it was originally a ficitonal game never intended to exist in real life, but once Konami got hold they managed to make the game work, despite it's flaws. Cards were balanced and generally playable during the GX era, and it was a great time. The designers at Konami really know what they're doing.

And given what Yugioh has become now, it's a disappointing shame, because all of the bad decisions are intentional.

Yugioh is a true power creep game, where they intentionally make new cards that are stronger in order to force people to buy them in order to play at even the casual level.

Each new generation of cards comes with a new hike in power level to force people to buy them, and it's a disgusting practice.

Despite starting off as a parody of Magic, Konami seems to refuse any attempt at learning from it's example.

It a serious shame, because as I said earlier in this thread, I seriously love how all over the place the themes and characters can be, and there are many that I find visually appealing. There's also the fact that Konami has used their grip on the license to create cards based on their own video games on the side. From Metal Gear to Gradius to Castlevania. It's so awesome.

But the issue of power creep is unavoidable and I outright quit after Zexal's debut, where my old deck, which was perfectly balanced and playable for years, is suddenly too weak to compete unless I throw away all my old cards and start buying the new ones.

It's a disgusting practice and I never want to contribute to it.

And I'm also disgusted by the fact that they NEVER credit their artists. WHY? It is seriously the only card game I've ever seen that doesn't credit it's artists.

[StardustLarva]

Aye, I do agree with you about it being imbalanced. I honestly think XYZ cards were a pretty unnecessary edition and a lot of the time they're incredibly cheap. It's a shame, because the metagame largely revolves around using those cards now, making a lot of perfectly good cards and old strategies obsolete. I also have no idea how the hell pendulum summons work.

Also, you're absolutely right about the artists not being credited, because some of the illustrations are beautiful and or have neat concepts. I love the Frog cards in particular for this reason.



In particular, I wish I knew the illustrator of this card.

[Psychotime]

So now that I'm two seasons into Game of Thrones, I feel comfortable enough with the world and characters to be able to play the card game, so I went and bought the core set, which is a 4-player free-for-all.

For those who don't know, the Game of Thrones game doesn't follow the random distribution model and instead treats it like a board game, which I personally think most card games (except Magic) should follow.

Now I just need more than one friend that plays card games. A chunk of my friends are big fans of the show, but I seriously doubt they'll bother with a card game regardless of the source material.

Maybe I should make it clear to them that the game is a one box game (sans expansions), and there's no collectible aspect to it at all. And that I'm the one buying everything.