People only fall back on technology for distraction when they're bored with a game.
I disagree, sometimes we have the tech open before we begin or it comes out when there is a pause and never goes away ;-p Plus some of our addictions to CIV :-p
Sound like you all have to have people go into the game technology free: no cell phones, no nothing, except for a clock.
Technology is handy. I use to love gaming in my parents basement with a few oil lamps and a stick of incense burning in the back ground or out in the garage at night with bat dive bombing the table. That shit was hardcore.
Since then, I've learned a laptop full of PDF's takes up less space and is lot easier to transport then a milk crate full of heavy ass books. I send text messages instead of passing notes to the GM. I can set up a play list instead of looping the X-Files opener or the Conan soundtrack. However, the TV still gets turned off and other outside distractions are kept to a minimal.
Since then, I've learned a laptop full of PDF's takes up less space and is lot easier to transport then a milk crate full of heavy ass books. I send text messages instead of passing notes to the GM. I can set up a play list instead of looping the X-Files opener or the Conan soundtrack. However, the TV still gets turned off and other outside distractions are kept to a minimal.
Yea that is helpful but it always leads to the distraction from the internet....
Yea that is helpful but it always leads to the distraction from the internet....
Yup, and the internet tempts people to look at child porn.
Some distractions are fine. Posting an argument you're having on the BW Forums maybe the easiest way to get some neutral imput. Civ is not fine. Youtube is not fine. I think the FRC runs into the problem where we don't see eachother all the time and thus we have information we want to share. If we hung out more, then we'd be less distracted by random stuff and able to focus on the game. AND it's easy to get distracted in larger games...
Solution: More smaller local games. Less EVERYONE IN! once a month monster games.
Another problem is that tabletop RPGs are a lot better weekly than monthly. Problem is we are all very busy, and that is impossible. If anyone wanted to try it, I would be willing, but I can almost guarantee I would be amongst those who could not stick to it.
If anyone wanted to try it, I would be willing, but I can almost guarantee I would be amongst those who could not stick to it.
Maybe I should run a small NYC game bi-weekly. A simple Burning Wheel. Small party, locals only (so no travel concerns). Time limit of four hours per session. Pointed and high energy.
After PAX, I will gauge interest in this (instead of my caravan game).
Maybe I should run a small NYC game bi-weekly. A simple Burning Wheel. Small party, locals only (so no travel concerns). Time limit of four hours per session. Pointed and high energy.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Burning Wheel is designed for smaller groups, if you're playing a long-term game. Part of the reason that we slip out of character so much is that in a larger game, you lose focus. Smaller games keep everyone in focus all the time, and the more rapid pace keeps everyone very engaged.
You will be amazed at how quickly things advance in a 3 or 4 player game.
That's actually an excellent idea. 6:00-10:00 every other Tuesday, with food halfway through. Short, pointed sessions. We can do this.
Right after you do the ecommerce and pay me money and start a political party and our own convention.
Another thing is that we should do a whole bunch of smaller games to start, to advance our RPG skills, and then start a big campaign. Do Trouble in Hochen, Thelon's Rift. Play a game of shock, a game of Lacuna, a game of Dogs in the Vineyard, a game of Dread.
Templar, don't mistake what I'm saying. I think you're addressing something different. It's totally cool if you are using computer to improve upon gameplay; I applaud your use of document programs to keep things organized.
I'm talking about people who play games classically. If you want to keep your players in this bubble for the length of the game, you have to ask them to sacrifice those distractions.
Random note on the topic of expansions, I know Thunderstone wasn't very well received on the podcast (I have never played it myself), but the first expansion has just come out, and includes something we all have been wishing Dominion would do: full set storage solution
The expansion box fits the base game inside it as well, comes with divider cards for all, and has foam blocks to act as placeholders for future cards. Damn that's nice of them.
Yeah, my boyfriend picked it up last night and was saying the same thing about how Dominion should do that. Pretty cool that Thunderstone gave us awesome dividers. Thunderstone is basically Dominion, but in a dungeon crawl version. It's fun to play, imo. The expansion also gives the option to play solo, so that's pretty cool as well for the lonely board gamer.
I never had those problems you mentioned Rym. It is true that someone playing the cylon could potentially go completely unnoticed by everyone at the table. But if that is the case, they are not doing a very good job of destroying the Battlestar and winning the game. A cylon who hides so well as to not get caught is also a cylon who is not going to win.
Hiding isn't how the Cylons win, it's destroying the BSG (or draining the dials, same thing). When I play a Cylon, one of my favorite tactics is to wait until someone makes a stupid suggestion, and then support that person and convince everybody to do it. Then when it turns out poorly for the humans, I blame it all on the guy who made it up }:-)
There is also the skill checks. I will often throw in a few positive cards and one giant whopping negative 5 card (or two). At the very least this makes my contribution a net of 0, and sometimes a negative contribution (when they were counting on my help). There's a chance that the destiny cards are also bad, and they could get an idea of which color was thrown in. If people start to notice a trend of negative cards always seem to be purple and blue, and I'm one of only 2 people at the table who draw purple and blue......I quickly reveal myself before they can throw me in the brig :P
I know you also had a problem with the "hidden" information. I think the spirit of the rule is very clear: You may not in any way communicate what cards you have in your hand. Outside of this rule, you may hit at what kind of cards you have, but you may not overtly reveal them. You just have to not powergame this one section of the rules. If you want people to know you have this skill check covered you say "guys, I don't need much help, I got this one." If you think you can't add much, you say "I'm not going to be much help guys." There's no reason to get any more specific/vague than that. If you play the game this way (the way, I would argue, the rulebook mandates it should be played) it is a huge amount of fun. If instead you rules lawyer the sentence into saying "so I can just say that I have really good cards and hold up 5 fingers without actually saying I have a 5 card!" *wink* *wink*, then I don't think anybody is going to enjoy the game.
I'm not sure there's a good way to write a rule for this hidden info. They want people to be able to discuss how much support to throw into the skill check, but it shouldn't be so easy as just adding up numbers as everyone reveals their hand. There needs to be some uncertainty for the game to have the tension necessary.
You just have to not powergame this one section of the rules.
We did a whole panel at PAX on why this sort of rule is bullshit. If you're playing to win, you powergame every rule. If that breaks the game, the game was broken to begin with. The game is only then playable if players purposefully play sub-optimally.
I'm not sure there's a good way to write a rule for this hidden info. They want people to be able to discuss how much support to throw into the skill check, but it shouldn't be so easy as just adding up numbers as everyone reveals their hand. There needs to be some uncertainty for the game to have the tension necessary.
Use a different mechanic. The card count is old and busted: even the stupid Lord of the Rings beat the game game used it. Amon Re does something similar perfectly with the donate to/fuck the gods system. Why not something like that?
Or, how about a videogame with shared and unshared spaces? Or, how about disallowing ALL verbal communication about cards and give players three signal tokens they can throw down?
Of course, the last one is subject to table talk similarly to how BSG's rules are. But, again, any game where tabletalk is a problem is poorly designed.
You just have to not powergame this one section of the rules.
We did a whole panel at PAX on why this sort of rule is bullshit. If you're playing to win, you powergameeveryrule. If that breaks the game, the game was broken to begin with. The game is only then playable if players purposefully play sub-optimally.
This is all well and good, but the fact remains that if you play the game correctly, (the way the rules tell you to) the game is a ton of fun and it is NOT broken. If you twist the rules to say something they don't then the game will be broken.
I understand your point of view, and maybe the section could be rewritten to be worded more clearly, but that doesn't mean the concept embodied with that block of rules is flawed, just the wording itself. If you play by the clear spirit of the rule (I.E. house rule this section of the rules so it is no longer "breakable") the game is a huge ton of fun.
This is all well and good, but the fact remains that if you play the game correctly, (the way the rules tell you to) the game is a ton of fun and it is NOT broken. If you twist the rules to say something they don't then the game will be broken.
No, if I play by the letter of the rules, then the game breaks down. There's also no incentive to not act randomly if you're the Cylon, except in deciding when to reveal yourself.
But, if you made the rules perfectly clear, then they remove most skill aspects of the game. There are few interesting decisions to make: they're either obvious or arbitrary.
No, if I play by the letter of the rules, then the game breaks down. There's also no incentive to not act randomly if you're the Cylon, except in deciding when to reveal yourself.
I haven't read the rules myself (was taught the game by someone else) so I cannot comment on the exact brokenness of the text itself. But if you abide by the following rules (which our group has no trouble following) the game is great:
1) You may only indicate whether you can help a lot, some, or a little. Those are your only three choices. It doesn't need to be in those exact words, but those must the context (e.g. "We're going to need a lot of help with this one" or "I have some good stuff, but not enough.")
2) You may indicate how many cards you plan to throw into the skill check (but not their values or colors)
3) You may not reveal what kind of cards you have or what their values are (with the exception of the first rule).
This is the gist of how we play. The humans can still coordinate approximately how much help they can throw in (in an attempt not to over-kill the skill check). The cylons can easily lie about how much help they are providing.
But, if you made the rules perfectly clear, then they remove most skill aspects of the game. There are few interesting decisions to make: they're either obvious or arbitrary.
I think you are trying to shoe-horn BSG in with games that emphesize the decision-making and skill elements. It's an experiential game. The fun in the game mostly comes from the experience of trying to figure out which of your friends is a lying cylon traitor! The banter that goes back and forth across the table, the accusations, the attempts to throw people into the brig. These are the things that make this game amazing and fun. The decision making aspect and skill input are secondary to this (but still interesting IMHO).
This game also tests your bluffing and persuasion skills, which is something that doesn't often come into the games I play (mostly wargames and some of the higher interaction Euros). I certainly enjoy that aspect.
And I think this line reveals why you and Rym are arguing. You have been attempting to argue that the game is fun because you have fun experiences with it. You can't (or simply chose not to) separate your personal experiences from the actual gameplay. That is to say, you like the game even though it's mechanically bad because you have fun playing it. That does happen; we all like terrible things at times, have fun playing bad games, etc. But there's a difference between a game that's fun, and a game that's good. Dominion is fun, but kinda broken and obvious, for example. The important thing to recognize is the difference between the sentences "I had fun playing BSG" and "BSG is a good game". Fun often arises out of goodness, but other factors, such as the people you're playing with, can make a mediocre game seem amazing, or a great game terrible. Part of the skills of going beyond being a fan, and into being a geek, is the ability to step beyond the instant "that was super fun" reaction and see behind the scenes to what the rules do and do not do.
Something that always comes up with expansions is storage. I think I brought up before that Thunderstone is shipping it's expansion in a box made to fit all of the original cards plus room for the future. Now it looks like Small World is giving similar support with their "Be Not Afraid" expansion, by including a new race token tray that fits all. This is a trend I would like to see continue.
I can see one potential problem. Gmae developers release a clearly unfinished game, get you hooked, and then say "Hey, here's another part of the map in a DLC for $15." It's a 'more of the same' situation but for something that should have been put in the game in the first place. It's like the area is on the map, you can see a way to get there, but it's blocked off and all the DLC does is give you the key to the game or move one guard.
I think the problem is actually the other way around. Board gamers will not put up with a shitty unfinished game the same way a video game would. We simply won't buy it. While video game companies might make their cash selling you expansions to fix a game, board game companies seem to be making their bank by shipping a fantastic game and then putting out unnecessary expansions that may not improve the game at all (and in some cases make it worse).
Most of these board game expansions are fan service. You fall in love with a certain mechanic and they take it to the max. You go "WHOAH, EPIC LEVEL!" but what you don't realize is that it's alienating to the new player, so it limits your opportunities to get that game to the table if you fall in love with the expansion.
I think the problem is actually the other way around. Board gamers will not put up with a shitty unfinished game the same way a video game would. We simply won't buy it.
I think Kickstarter tabletop games have successfully overcome this obstacle to the purveyance of shitty games.
I think the problem is actually the other way around. Board gamers will not put up with a shitty unfinished game the same way a video game would. We simply won't buy it.
I think Kickstarter tabletop games have successfully overcome this obstacle to the purveyance of shitty games.
Also different "versions" of a board game which are separated by months when the game has a version 2.0.
Look at what you get with Pandante now compared to release. Another example is Game of Thrones version 1 was pretty bad and version 2 was great (not including poorly written rules).
Comments
Since then, I've learned a laptop full of PDF's takes up less space and is lot easier to transport then a milk crate full of heavy ass books. I send text messages instead of passing notes to the GM. I can set up a play list instead of looping the X-Files opener or the Conan soundtrack. However, the TV still gets turned off and other outside distractions are kept to a minimal.
Some distractions are fine. Posting an argument you're having on the BW Forums maybe the easiest way to get some neutral imput. Civ is not fine. Youtube is not fine. I think the FRC runs into the problem where we don't see eachother all the time and thus we have information we want to share. If we hung out more, then we'd be less distracted by random stuff and able to focus on the game. AND it's easy to get distracted in larger games...
Solution: More smaller local games. Less EVERYONE IN! once a month monster games.
After PAX, I will gauge interest in this (instead of my caravan game).
You will be amazed at how quickly things advance in a 3 or 4 player game.
Another thing is that we should do a whole bunch of smaller games to start, to advance our RPG skills, and then start a big campaign. Do Trouble in Hochen, Thelon's Rift. Play a game of shock, a game of Lacuna, a game of Dogs in the Vineyard, a game of Dread.
Templar, don't mistake what I'm saying. I think you're addressing something different. It's totally cool if you are using computer to improve upon gameplay; I applaud your use of document programs to keep things organized.
I'm talking about people who play games classically. If you want to keep your players in this bubble for the length of the game, you have to ask them to sacrifice those distractions.
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/781321/thunderstone-wrath-of-the-elements
The expansion box fits the base game inside it as well, comes with divider cards for all, and has foam blocks to act as placeholders for future cards. Damn that's nice of them.
I never had those problems you mentioned Rym. It is true that someone playing the cylon could potentially go completely unnoticed by everyone at the table. But if that is the case, they are not doing a very good job of destroying the Battlestar and winning the game. A cylon who hides so well as to not get caught is also a cylon who is not going to win.
Hiding isn't how the Cylons win, it's destroying the BSG (or draining the dials, same thing). When I play a Cylon, one of my favorite tactics is to wait until someone makes a stupid suggestion, and then support that person and convince everybody to do it. Then when it turns out poorly for the humans, I blame it all on the guy who made it up }:-)
There is also the skill checks. I will often throw in a few positive cards and one giant whopping negative 5 card (or two). At the very least this makes my contribution a net of 0, and sometimes a negative contribution (when they were counting on my help). There's a chance that the destiny cards are also bad, and they could get an idea of which color was thrown in. If people start to notice a trend of negative cards always seem to be purple and blue, and I'm one of only 2 people at the table who draw purple and blue......I quickly reveal myself before they can throw me in the brig :P
I know you also had a problem with the "hidden" information. I think the spirit of the rule is very clear: You may not in any way communicate what cards you have in your hand. Outside of this rule, you may hit at what kind of cards you have, but you may not overtly reveal them. You just have to not powergame this one section of the rules. If you want people to know you have this skill check covered you say "guys, I don't need much help, I got this one." If you think you can't add much, you say "I'm not going to be much help guys." There's no reason to get any more specific/vague than that. If you play the game this way (the way, I would argue, the rulebook mandates it should be played) it is a huge amount of fun. If instead you rules lawyer the sentence into saying "so I can just say that I have really good cards and hold up 5 fingers without actually saying I have a 5 card!" *wink* *wink*, then I don't think anybody is going to enjoy the game.
I'm not sure there's a good way to write a rule for this hidden info. They want people to be able to discuss how much support to throw into the skill check, but it shouldn't be so easy as just adding up numbers as everyone reveals their hand. There needs to be some uncertainty for the game to have the tension necessary.
Or, how about a videogame with shared and unshared spaces? Or, how about disallowing ALL verbal communication about cards and give players three signal tokens they can throw down?
Of course, the last one is subject to table talk similarly to how BSG's rules are. But, again, any game where tabletalk is a problem is poorly designed.
I understand your point of view, and maybe the section could be rewritten to be worded more clearly, but that doesn't mean the concept embodied with that block of rules is flawed, just the wording itself. If you play by the clear spirit of the rule (I.E. house rule this section of the rules so it is no longer "breakable") the game is a huge ton of fun.
But, if you made the rules perfectly clear, then they remove most skill aspects of the game. There are few interesting decisions to make: they're either obvious or arbitrary.
1) You may only indicate whether you can help a lot, some, or a little. Those are your only three choices. It doesn't need to be in those exact words, but those must the context (e.g. "We're going to need a lot of help with this one" or "I have some good stuff, but not enough.")
2) You may indicate how many cards you plan to throw into the skill check (but not their values or colors)
3) You may not reveal what kind of cards you have or what their values are (with the exception of the first rule).
This is the gist of how we play. The humans can still coordinate approximately how much help they can throw in (in an attempt not to over-kill the skill check). The cylons can easily lie about how much help they are providing. I think you are trying to shoe-horn BSG in with games that emphesize the decision-making and skill elements. It's an experiential game. The fun in the game mostly comes from the experience of trying to figure out which of your friends is a lying cylon traitor! The banter that goes back and forth across the table, the accusations, the attempts to throw people into the brig. These are the things that make this game amazing and fun. The decision making aspect and skill input are secondary to this (but still interesting IMHO).
This game also tests your bluffing and persuasion skills, which is something that doesn't often come into the games I play (mostly wargames and some of the higher interaction Euros). I certainly enjoy that aspect.
Most of these board game expansions are fan service. You fall in love with a certain mechanic and they take it to the max. You go "WHOAH, EPIC LEVEL!" but what you don't realize is that it's alienating to the new player, so it limits your opportunities to get that game to the table if you fall in love with the expansion.
Look at what you get with Pandante now compared to release.
Another example is Game of Thrones version 1 was pretty bad and version 2 was great (not including poorly written rules).