Best non-PnP Games

[Ice9]

Agree on Puerto Rico, I've been playing it recently, and I like the different victory paths, as well as the way you can screw with people by what phases you pick.

I like Pandemic, but everyone who I'd play it with thinks it's unplayably difficult to win, due to some bad experience with it in the past. Seriously, they won't even try it.

[Zinegata]

I like Pandemic, but everyone who I'd play it with thinks it's unplayably difficult to win, due to some bad experience with it in the past. Seriously, they won't even try it.

It is actually pretty difficult unless all the players are very good at the game.

It's a bit like the LoTR boardgame. If you have one player who keeps doing suboptimal moves, then the team is pretty much screwed.

[Fuchs]

I like Junta.

[Zinegata]

I like Junta.

Don't make me stab you. I just played that game three weeks ago and...

Well, okay, it was fun being a banana Republic president. Right up to the moment that I had to put down three consecutive coups because one my Generals had a beef against me for not giving him any money .

[mean_liar]

I love/hate Junta. It works best not as a game in its own right, but a cathartic exercise and exorcism of your intragroup psychodramas.

The last game I played of this had a President that paid himself only enough money to fuel assassinations, with nothing for himself personally left over. His only joy in the game was killing or subsidizing killing, not in attempting to win - money earned from assassinating people was handed over to the Minister of Internal Security.

[Username17]

Best game of Junta I had involved everyone being issued cap guns and a bottle of scotch. It really added o the ambiance to have people actually pointing guns at each other.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

I love/hate Junta. It works best not as a game in its own right, but a cathartic exercise and exorcism of your intragroup psychodramas.

It makes much more sense when you put it this way.

The hilarious thing about my game was that they had 3 coups in a row because they thought I was hoarding money for myself and giving out only crumbs to everyone else. When the new president took over after I voluntarily stepped down however, his comment was thus:

"Shit, Zine really was being honest about the lack of money"

We then coup'd his ass . (And failed miserably)

Hilariously, the game ended with the second president wanting to lose the coup. Because he cut a deal with the insurgents: The revolutionaries would spare him, and we would shoot his Minister of Security instead. The president would then get a cut out of the Minister of Security's massive cash reserves.

It was a Xanatos gambit worthy of any Saturday Cartoon Villain. Only it didn't work because the damn Minister of Security somehow still managed to win despite the Presidential Guard abandoning the palace

[cthulhu]

I like Pandemic, but everyone who I'd play it with thinks it's unplayably difficult to win, due to some bad experience with it in the past. Seriously, they won't even try it.

It is actually pretty difficult unless all the players are very good at the game.

It's a bit like the LoTR boardgame. If you have one player who keeps doing suboptimal moves, then the team is pretty much screwed.

Yeah, it's why I don't like the game anymore - it tends to lead to the best tacticians ordering everyone else around.

[RobbyPants]

I absolutely love Dominion. That game is crazy addictive. I like the variety you can have from game to game (picking different sets of 10 out of 25 choices), and I like that it's not a CGG, so you don't have to buy more sets to keep up.

Really, my one complaint about that game is if Chapel is out, you pretty much know what everyone is going to do that game.

[Zinegata]

I absolutely love Dominion. That game is crazy addictive. I like the variety you can have from game to game (picking different sets of 10 out of 25 choices), and I like that it's not a CGG, so you don't have to buy more sets to keep up.

Really, my one complaint about that game is if Chapel is out, you pretty much know what everyone is going to do that game.

Trash your deck down to six cards, which now consists of 2 villages, 3 Witches, and a Chapel?

[Thymos]

I have to throw my vote in for arkham horror with the dunwich and insmouth horror expansions.

With all the different old ones, cards and investigators this game has a ton of re-playability. I also have to give the creators props for how frequently this game has very close endings.

[RobbyPants]

I absolutely love Dominion. That game is crazy addictive. I like the variety you can have from game to game (picking different sets of 10 out of 25 choices), and I like that it's not a CGG, so you don't have to buy more sets to keep up.

Really, my one complaint about that game is if Chapel is out, you pretty much know what everyone is going to do that game.

Trash your deck down to six cards, which now consists of 2 villages, 3 Witches, and a Chapel?

It depends on what other cards are out there. It will be a minimum of one Chapel and three Gold. Other cards that are nice to add are:

1 Adventurer

1-2 Cellars

1 Chancellor

A few Laboratories

I wouldn't add all of those, but any one of those sets makes you much more likely to get three Gold in one hand. The Witch can cause problems for that deck, but it's not that hard to purge most Curses out with Chapel. A Thief, however, is a real pain. You're only two options are run the deck with double the Gold you need (which makes it more likely to get stolen) or get 2-3 Moats in your deck, and hopefully 2 +Action cards to be able to use more than one if needed on your turn.

[Kaelik]

Last Night on Earth is pretty damn awesome in a lot of ways.

I would play that any day.

[CatharzGodfoot]

A Thief, however, is a real pain. You're only two options are run the deck with double the Gold you need (which makes it more likely to get stolen) or get 2-3 Moats in your deck, and hopefully 2 +Action cards to be able to use more than one if needed on your turn.

I'm a big fan of Chapel + Festival, especially when the Thief is out. It also happens to be just about the best opening Chapel combination, if you're lucky enough to get the 5|2 split.

But there are all kinds of fun strategies in Dominion. Chapel decks are most definitely beatable by other strategies.

[TheFlatline]

Arkham Horror is fun, and we enjoy playing it, but it suffers from too many fucking cards syndrome.

I went and bought several business card holder trays, with 8 slots a piece, so that we can organize FFG board games without using a side table to contain every card token and counter that they include.

I would love to see the size of the table they playtest these goddamn games on. It must be a huge conference table or something. If I were of any position of authority in FFG, I'd demand that playtesting be done on a normal sized dinner table, a coffee table, and a few other tables with a smaller footprint than a picnic table.

If you have trouble playing any game on a dinner table that has a leaf in it, you need to scale back the fucking game. If the piles of cards, counters, and player references takes up more room than the board itself, you need to rethink your game. If it takes longer than 30 minutes to set the game up, you need to rethink your game. If you need a tackle box to sort all the counters in your game (I'm looking at you, Descent!), you need to streamline your game.

[RobbyPants]

But there are all kinds of fun strategies in Dominion. Chapel decks are most definitely beatable by other strategies.

Yeah, it's beatable, but it largely depends on what else is out there.

But that's so much of why I like Dominion. We usually randomly pick the ten Kingdom cards, so one they're laid out, everyone starts looking them over picking a preliminary strategy. That's my favorite part.

[TarkisFlux]

I love me some WizWar.

[Zinegata]

But there are all kinds of fun strategies in Dominion. Chapel decks are most definitely beatable by other strategies.

Yeah, it's beatable, but it largely depends on what else is out there.

But that's so much of why I like Dominion. We usually randomly pick the ten Kingdom cards, so one they're laid out, everyone starts looking them over picking a preliminary strategy. That's my favorite part.

Indeed. I've done some... crazy evil things in Dominion like that Witch deck. With a stated objective of "I aim to be the only person with a non-negative score on the board" it made everyone try to finish the game real quick .

My most hilarious deck was probably one that Remodelled stuff into gold, and Gold into Provinces. I felt like a Wizard >_>.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I've found that remodeling Silver into Duchies tends to work out better than Gold into Provinces because it's so much faster, but of course YMMV.

[Zinegata]

I've found that remodeling Silver into Duchies tends to work out better than Gold into Provinces because it's so much faster, but of course YMMV.

I didn't win my Gold into Provinces game... so yeah, maybe Silver to Duchy is the ticket!

[RobbyPants]

Yeah, the last game I played, I ended up doing something similar. It was basically Estate -> Remodel -> Gold -> Province. Sadly, I lost by two points and I'd remodeled two estates.

Silver -> Duchy would be nice, but I also had a Mine that game, so my silver were becoming Gold.