Classic Games obviated by modern games

[angelfromanotherpin]

My favorite traitor-type game at the moment is Dead of Winter. Not only does it have a bunch of scenarios that play differently, but everyone has a secret goal which is going to have them doing something nonoptimal in the game, from hoarding a valuable resource to actively trying to get characters killed. And those guys all still want the group goal to be completed! The actual traitor will be working against the collective goal as well.

[Shatner]

The exact siege-engine spam issue was discovered and discussed outside of the game and a gentleman's agreement was made that if you play the traitor you have to try and slip under the radar for as long victory by stealth is possible (an unrevealed traitor flips one or two (I forget) of those victory points to losses at the end of the game so subtle sabotage is a valid strategy). You're still allowed to plunk down a siege engine every turn, but you have to come up with enough plausible excuses for why that's better than tempting the RNG that the rest of the group doesn't doubt your loyalty. The reason for this was because being obviously traitorous from the start of the game is just kinda bland and it undermines what fun there is to be had from this exercise in table top masochism

I'd agree that being a sneaky traitor is way more fun, but I prefer BSG because in that game being a sneaky traitor is also way more effective.

See, managing the bad stuff in SoC is more about coordination. You handle this problem, I take that one. You can sandbag on the Excalibur quest, but you play your cards face-up on the others. In BSG, it's much more about cooperation, so hidden traitors can secretly fuck with things to a much greater extent. It's like everyone is together on a new quest every turn, and instead of 1-5 fight cards, cards are 1-5 in five different colors, which count positively or negatively depending on what the quest card says. So a hidden traitor can actively sabotage as well as sandbag, and can blame high negative cards on the two randoms that also get thrown in. On the other hand, while "human" (including hidden traitors) players draw 5 cards and can play as many as they want, revealed traitors draw 3 and can only play 1.

And once all the traitors are revealed, it's much easier for humans to work together. Not only in the crisis checks ("quests"), but you no longer have to worry about spending actions and cards to try to replace the Admiral and/or President in case they're robots. And one of the most common cards allows you to spend your action to give another player two actions. For humans, it's huge, but it's risky if there are hidden traitors, so you want to stay hidden for most of the game.

The other thing I don't like is that the traitor mechanic is only a possibility unless you play with 8 people. I don't want it to be a traitor game or not determined by the luck of the draw, they're such different experiences. If I want a complicated game with traitors, I play BSG. If I want a game that is only about dealing with traitors, I play Resistance. And if I want to play a game about managing a bunch of different crises all exploding at once, I play Ghost Stories.

You make some compelling points, but I want to correct one statement: in several of the quests in SoC, you have the option to place cards face up or face down. Face up shows the group what you're doing but playing face down allows you to immediately draw another card, which is a pretty damn big deal. As such, for many quests even the loyal knights have every reason to play in a traitor-enabling way. Plus, cards played are supposed to be shuffled before revealed so people can't go "card #3 was terrible and Steve played card #3 so he must be the traitor". It's more "someone put in a shit card but just about everyone contributed to this quest so either someone had a terrible hand or there is a traitor somewhere among us."

[Morat]

You make some compelling points, but I want to correct one statement: in several of the quests in SoC, you have the option to place cards face up or face down. Face up shows the group what you're doing but playing face down allows you to immediately draw another card, which is a pretty damn big deal. As such, for many quests even the loyal knights have every reason to play in a traitor-enabling way. Plus, cards played are supposed to be shuffled before revealed so people can't go "card #3 was terrible and Steve played card #3 so he must be the traitor". It's more "someone put in a shit card but just about everyone contributed to this quest so either someone had a terrible hand or there is a traitor somewhere among us."

It's true that you can hide the negative cards, but whether or not you play them face down doesn't change their value. You can't, like, add more or make them higher. At most you could delay a black card for a few draws by losing life or placing catapults, but it's still coming barring a Merlin.

As for white cards, the only quests you can really sandbag are the Excalibur (playing good cards) and maybe the dragon (playing bad ones). All the others either only take very specific cards or are solo quests where one player is obviously responsible for every single white card.

And again, if I want to play a game with traitors, I don't want to randomly not have one, and vice versa. I don't dislike SoC, but for me, it's been replaced by BSG and/or Ghost Stories (with treason distilled into Resistance).

[SubversionArts]

Loaded Questions -> Cards Against Humanity

So this one... My experience with Loaded Questions has been where it was practically a drinking game, or at least that there was enough drinking going on that none of the players should be allowed to drive afterwards. We ended up getting tired of dealing with the board and going all Talisman around it, that we basically just took turns doing the questions and mostly ignored the board. The thing I like most about it is the "can you guess who gave this answer" aspect to it, and the fact that anyone could turn the most innocent question into something dirty. It's great for getting to know people, and I like it a lot for that.

CAH plays a lot better, but it's more of a dirty game that doesn't take much creativity to make it dirty.

I've kind of been looking around for a game to substitute for Loaded Questions that keeps the part I like, and does a better job with the part that I don't like. I just haven't found it yet. And with so many CAH clones out there, it seems like there should be by now.

[Shatner]

My group stopped using the board for Loaded Questions after our first playing of it. It really was just a party game with the two aspects of 1) using your knowledge of your friends' personalities and histories to tell which one gave which answer even, or especially, when they're trying to throw you off and 2) seeing what clever and entertaining answers your friends can give to the various prompts of Loaded Questions.

Loaded Questions was both a very dirty game for my group, because my group is full of a bunch of gutter-minded people, and a breeding ground for new in-jokes. It was great and I loved it and we played the hell out of it for a long time.


HOWEVER, coming up with your own answers to those prompts umpteen times each game was beyond the ability and endurance for some members of our group. They'd simply get fatigued thinking of entertaining and clever shit whole cloth 15-20 times each game and once CAH was introduced, they lobbied to play that instead.

Cards Against Humanity basically serves the same purpose of having a prompt generate funny, clever, and dirty response from friends, and we include a "who gave which answer" minigame while playing it. However, it's massively easier to pick from a list of pre-generated responses than to make something up and it plays much better to the lowest common denominator in my group. I happen to be good at churning out quality responses to many prompts in Loaded Questions so I loved that game and never pushed to have CAH take it's place. But I recognize why others felt differently and the end result was CAH supplanting Loaded Questions.

[SubversionArts]

However, it's massively easier to pick from a list of pre-generated responses than to make something up and it plays much better to the lowest common denominator in my group. I happen to be good at churning out quality responses to many prompts in Loaded Questions so I loved that game and never pushed to have CAH take it's place. But I recognize why others felt differently and the end result was CAH supplanting Loaded Questions.

I can completely see that happening. And add drunk fatigue on top of it, you'll be ending the evening quicker than expected.

Ah well, I may get it and bully my current group into playing it. Maybe come up with a better scoring mechanic than the board. In the past, we've had the general rule if the question you get doesn't look fun, then you can pick a different one.

[momothefiddler]

CAH plays a lot better, but it's more of a dirty game that doesn't take much creativity to make it dirty.

I do enjoy a good round of apples to apples from time to time to bring back the ability to read dirty things into the cards rather than just... have them there.

[RobbyPants]

My wife loves Apples to Apples, and she got a game called The T-Shirt Game a while back. It's the same general principle where your "green card" is a picture and all of the "red cards" are slogans that you could put on a T-shirt with that picture. I've found that it's not inherently dirty, but it is very easy to make dirty or otherwise dark, and it lead to a fun night.

That was, of course, once we jettisoned the scoring system. If you just played with a simple "first to ten wins" or something, it'd be fun. Instead, they opted to have the game go up to 3,000 points, and every time your slogan gets picked, you get to draw a score card, with values between 101 and 1,500 points. Also, there are some "steal someone else's score card" cards in there, as well, so you can totally steal 1,500 points from someone. The quality of the cards you draw is often more important than how often you get to draw them.