Best non-PnP Games

[Zinegata]

As the other thread's more optimistic twin, what are the traditional games that you DO like? (I'm exclusing FFGs since I already made a thread with them)

Here are some of mine:

Magic: The Gathering - Yes, it's expensive. That's why you play with guys who own a Cube and draft from there .

Race for the Galaxy - I love this game. Quick, fast-paced, and it's a great resource optimization game.

Fire in the Sky - The best 2-hour wargame on the Pacific War that's actually realistic.

Hellenes - Athenians and Spartans fighting over young boys. Seriously though it's a new, great wargame that is a fine balance between a superior landpower vs a superior naval power. Great game.

Here I Stand - Best Card-driven game ever.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The Isle of Doctor Necreaux is pretty damn sweet.

[Crissa]

Well, I've found Go fascinating lately, but it's really frustrating to play sometimes; the attitude of the player you're against really changes the game, whether they're going to be ultra-skilled or not, but how punishing in the fighting or chatter over the game really changes it. For such a plain looking game, it's endless possibilities and difficulty really does me in.

Another one I was introduced to... I can't recall the game. But there are several players with a color, and tetris-like pieces (each set has one of each shape and number of squares) and you build out to cover the most number of connecting squares on the board with your color - and whoever gets to cover the most by the time no one can build out, wins. Hrm.

-Crissa

[Lago PARANOIA]

I fucking loved DragonStrike back in the day; I don't know if it'd hold out today but from ages 8 to 12 it was always a huge hit when we played. My favorite character was the wizard, which worked out well for me, because the others liked to play the melee classes.

I really would like to play that or even a more complicated board game like Heroquest or Warhammer Quest, but unfortunately I think that those days are over.

I owned a boxed set for the Introduction to D&D; while that technically is a PnP game you could run it almost exactly like a board game. One of my regrets is that I never got to play it with anyone and probably never will, but a combination of that and Baldur's Gate is what got me into D&D.

[Jilocasin]

Go is quite possibly my favorite board game ever. The skill level of the person you're playing against can certainly effect the feel of the game, but really you should be playing a couple of games and then figuring out what handicap a person should have. Or if if both players are actually ranked then determining respective handicaps should be fairly simple. I used to be on KGS Go server all the time, but not so much lately. I should get back into it, but I've been playing people much more in person lately and that's usually a lot more fun.

Aside from that, Smallworld has been pretty enjoyable. At a somewhat intermittent game night, my friends and I have been playing that. There's enough randomized variety to play the game for quite some time before it becomes too formulaic.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I have been known to play some Chez Geek on occasion, it's a fun time waster.

My girl taught me to play Farkle a while back, it's also a fairly fun and simple game.

[PoliteNewb]

My all-time favorite would have to be BANG!, but unfortunately you need 5-6 people for it to be really enjoyable.

I've had a good time with the Order of the Stick boardgame, but it takes a really freaking long time to play.

The Star Wars CCG by Decipher was probably the most enjoyable CCG/TCG I ever played.

[A Man In Black]

The Star Wars CCG by Decipher was probably the most enjoyable CCG/TCG I ever played.

That game was so terrible, but I loved it so much.

[TheFlatline]

Magic: The Gathering - Yes, it's expensive. That's why you play with guys who own a Cube and draft from there .

Magic stopped being fun when they started introducing phasing and sh*t.

I used to bust out my pre-homelands decks and play against the new cool kids occasionally back in the day, and would freak them out by how effective my decks were. Then they added shit that you *have* to keep buying in order to stay competitive, and the magic cards went into closet and never came out again. They're probably worth something now. Mostly revised & unlimited cards (Unlimited had the white boarders I think, so mostly unlimited) with some fallen empires and a few expansions here and there up through Homelands.

Great non PnP games in no particular order:

Scotland Yard
Lunch Money
Pink Godzilla Dev Kit (silly but not especially challenging. It's kind of a themed rummy game)
Zombies!!!
Fluxx (In fact, I have yet to meet someone who doesn't love Fluxx after the second or third game)
Starfleet Battles (Forgive me, but it's one of my all time favorites)
Frag (stupid, silly fun, but you need a metric assload of dice, like 15+, and you have to use division.)
Car Wars
Close Action (Squadron & fleet action in the Napoleonic wars. Think a fast version of SFB)

Close Action is probably my favorite right now, but gets played the least. Finding four or more people to play for a few hours is difficult. Everyone wants to play a PnP game if I get that many folks together.

[Prak]

I was wondering if someone was going to mention Lunch Money. Beer Money's good too, but the starting conceit of the game's no where near as good as Lunch money.

[Username17]

I think Beer Money is a better written and balanced game. But I admit it's freaky as hell to see the Lunch Money girl after she is grown up, hot, and legal.

If you haven't played Pandemic yet, you are missing out. That game is epic. Between the variable difficulty and the fast pace of the game, it is probably the number one cooperative board game.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

I think Beer Money is a better written and balanced game. But I admit it's freaky as hell to see the Lunch Money girl after she is grown up, hot, and legal.

If you haven't played Pandemic yet, you are missing out. That game is epic. Between the variable difficulty and the fast pace of the game, it is probably the number one cooperative board game.

-Username17

I laughed with the Lunch Money quip about the girl.

I actually picked up and just started playing Pandemic about a month ago. I really like it, and love the "no dice needed" mechanics. I also want to pick up the expansion because it supposedly adds some variety into the game. I just don't know how it will hold up to extended play into months/years so I didn't add it to the list. For me, a game doesn't make it onto a "classic game" list until a year or two of periodic play shows longevity.

But my friend and I played a round of it in 30 minutes, first time out, and we had a blast. Easy to learn, easy to play, and the act of coordinating in order to progress through the game is fantastic.

[hogarth]

Scrabble is probably my favourite.

[Ravengm]

Another one I was introduced to... I can't recall the game. But there are several players with a color, and tetris-like pieces (each set has one of each shape and number of squares) and you build out to cover the most number of connecting squares on the board with your color - and whoever gets to cover the most by the time no one can build out, wins. Hrm.

That sounds like Blokus. That game is awesome.

[mean_liar]

Pandemic is great, and the expansion makes it even better.

War of the Ring is a fantastic two-person wargame. There's a lot of resource management divided between winning the war or winning the Ring. If the cards weren't so fiddly it'd be even better, but it's good enough already.

Lord of the Rings is another great coop game. The players are the hobbits and it absolutely nails the theme of cooperation and sacrifice: you all win or you all lose. Sauron's in-game representation is iconic and satisfyingly ominous.

Pit is a classic piece of entertainment. I picked up Knizia's revisionist version of Pit (called Wheedle) but haven't played it yet. You trade cards and screw each other over and try to corner the market on a commodity while preventing anyone else from doing the same with their own commodity. A very loud and enthusiastic game.

Lost Cities is a totally awesome two player card game (again, Knizia). Winning requires a combination of luck and skill such that it has a long life for being two players. (The typical problem with most 2-player games is that one player dominates the other and the game ceases to be fun for both).

My wife loves Tigris and Euphrates. I think it's "good" but not great, but considering that I haven't met anyone that thinks it's "bad", that means that it comes out on couples night when we're not playing Pandemic.

I've heard very good things about Bohnanza, but haven't played it yet.

[Blicero]

I like diplomacy a lot, but it really needs the full 6 players to be fun. And it also depends on having players who are actually into the intrigue-y parts of the game, not just autoattacking a la Risk.

[Maj]

Scotland Yard

Whoa. Someone else plays Scotland Yard? That game is awesomely hard. And it's tough for us to find players for it. But it's fun.

I'm a big fan of Dread Pirate and Betrayal at House on the Hill, which are just cool. I also like Settlers of Catan, Ninja Burger, and Pirateer. And for portability, I absolutely adore Crack the Case. I wish there were expansions for that game.

[Archmage]

Betrayal at the House on the Hill is fun largely because of it's heavily-randomized nature; it's not a game you can enjoy too much if you're going to get super-serious about competitive play. Some of the scenarios are definitely skewed toward one side or the other, but I think a lot of that comes down to "who got kitted out the most before the haunt reveal?"

Concur with Pandemic as well. The expansion does indeed add a lot to it, though I haven't tried the bio-terrorist version yet. The only problem I have with Pandemic is that it's kind of unclear exactly how much information sharing is allowed.

[TheFlatline]

Scotland Yard

Whoa. Someone else plays Scotland Yard? That game is awesomely hard. And it's tough for us to find players for it. But it's fun.

I haven't played it in about 10 years. It's impossible to find people who *want* to play it.

I love it though. I prefer playing as Mr. X instead of the inspectors, but lord it's fun.

I'm getting Fury of Dracula presently here. I hear it's a more complicated version of Scotland Yard, though it's a FFG, so I imagine it's going to be counter & card obsessed.

[endersdouble]

Betrayal at the House on the Hill is fun largely because of it's heavily-randomized nature; it's not a game you can enjoy too much if you're going to get super-serious about competitive play. Some of the scenarios are definitely skewed toward one side or the other, but I think a lot of that comes down to "who got kitted out the most before the haunt reveal?"

Agree. Balance isn't right--Manxome has some work done on rebalancing haunts, IIRC--but this game is ludicrously fun. Just don't come in hoping to, y'know, win.

[DragonChild]

I'm going to second Bang! which is all kinds of awesome. And among similar lines, Shadow Hunters, which is the best game I've ever played. My friends can sit and play it for hours and hours.

[Zinegata]

I think Beer Money is a better written and balanced game. But I admit it's freaky as hell to see the Lunch Money girl after she is grown up, hot, and legal.

If you haven't played Pandemic yet, you are missing out. That game is epic. Between the variable difficulty and the fast pace of the game, it is probably the number one cooperative board game.

-Username17

I demand pictures of the Lunch Money Girl .

Pandemic is fun but it gets traumatizing after a while. Fortunately the expansion came out and I can play the Bio-terrorist

[Zinegata]

Scotland Yard

Whoa. Someone else plays Scotland Yard? That game is awesomely hard. And it's tough for us to find players for it. But it's fun.

I'm a big fan of Dread Pirate and Betrayal at House on the Hill, which are just cool. I also like Settlers of Catan, Ninja Burger, and Pirateer. And for portability, I absolutely adore Crack the Case. I wish there were expansions for that game.

I've played Scotland Yard. Including the rethemes Fury of Dracula and the Pandemic expansion .

Betrayal is also an awesome game concept, and a decent game when the errata is out. Am hoping the reprint pushes through.

[Jacob_Orlove]

Pandemic is great, it's about the only new board game I've played recently that I wanted to go out and buy.

Go is excellent, I strongly prefer it to Chess. A big part of that is how well the handicap system works, my dad is slowly moving from a 4 stone handicap to 3 against me (I'm more of a visual thinker than he is), but the games are always close. You just can't do that in Chess.

I'll never give up on Magic, but these days we mostly use a big stack of preselected cards. One of my friends has an old school "cube" that doesn't use any cards printed with the new card face design. It's a lot of fun. Personally, I'm working on a "Type 4" stack with a lot of sharpie-errata to cards to make them more interesting. I've been meaning to get back into the competitive scene, though. It's not like Type 1 cards go obsolete.

Other good games include Puerto Rico, Apples to Apples, and Cranium, plus more that aren't coming to mind right now.

[Zinegata]

Other good games include Puerto Rico, Apples to Apples, and Cranium, plus more that aren't coming to mind right now.

I played Puerto Rico again yesterday. It was fun.

So was Endeavour.

Also, anyone here ever play Dixit or Time's Up?