GeekNights 20100914 - PAX Prime 2010 - The Games

MrPeriod

Tonight, in part one of our PAX Prime 2010 coverage, we discuss the games of PAX, including Bohnanza, Duke Nukem Forever, Power Boats, Modern Art, Monaco, We Didn't Playtest This at All, Jam City Rollergirls, Freemarket, Push Fight, Jungle Speed, Dominion, Catacombs, and the rest! Further coverage to come!

• Rym's Thing - Complete History of the Soviet Union, Arranged to the Melody of Tetris
• Scott's Thing - Bicycle Slow Race

Download MP3

Rochelle

Power Boats

Powerboats

Andrew

It's time to shave it, Scott. It's a lost cause.

George Patches

It's time to shave it, Scott. It's a lost cause.

He's not trying to hide it though, so it's cool.

Apreche

It's time to shave it, Scott. It's a lost cause.

I'm thinking in the spring. I need to keep warm when it's woman out.

Also, cameras make it appear less than it is for some reason. It's a little bit more in person.

Rochelle

Also, cameras make it appear less than it is for some reason. It's a little bit more in person.

Just from a higher angle. If you do shave it you can totally sport awesome beanies and have them coordinate with your purse, belt, and shoes. :P

Want me to make something, let me know. I like making hats.

Apreche

I just need to avoid the neo-nazi skinhead type of look.

Andrew

I just need to avoid the neo-nazi skinhead type of look.

Yeah, instead of full shave, just buzz cut it real short.

Rochelle

Yeah, instead of full shave, just buzz cut it real short.

Then grow some sort of facial hair.

Wear the Mega Man hat and be uber.

Victor Frost

Yeah, instead of full shave, just buzz cut it real short.

Then grow some sort of facial hair.

Wearthe Mega Man hatand be uber.

Wear a beret or a cabbie hat. Nah, make it a beret. After all, Jamie looks awesome in it.

Dromaro

WTB Mega Man Beanie, PST for price.

Rochelle

I call bullshit on Bohnanza. Ian won, barely beating me by 1 coin. :P

You guys forgot to mention Dixit. -_-

It's too bad you guys missed out on the game of Kingsburg. It's a resource management game to where you build up your army to be able to defeat whatever is attacking the kingdom by winter. It reminds me a lot of Puerto Rico, but with less chits. I'm going to have to buy this game.

And yes, S'quarrels was a fun game and a good buy. Perfect for when you need a quick game.


It was right in front of Table Top HQ, the squirrel plushy attracted my curiosity.

Matt

Rym, what shirt are you wearing in that pic?

Victor Frost

You guys forgot to mention Dixit. -_-

That was a fun game.

Railith

Here is the answer to your hair situation Scott.

Matt

Yeah you might as well go with the close buzz before going full shave. If you don't like it, you can always cut it down further, but not the other way around. I would just go for it now, though. It'll probably look pretty good, and no offense dude but I can't see that hair providing all that much warmth. Like Ro said, all buzzing/shaving your hair will do is make hats more comfortable.

zehaeva

Did anyone else play that D&D: Castle Ravenloft Board Game at PAX? One of the guys I was there with was super interested in it and while we learned Le Harve Saturday night (Never play Le Harve 4 players the first time through. It took us 4 hours and the game felt like it should have ended 2.5 hours in) a group came in and played it and raved about it.

We thought to give it a go Sunday and I'm not sure if we were missing something but this game felt terribly generic and like I was drowning under all the events and monsters and traps that all seemed to happen on each and every single person's turn.

Not a fun first time through.

TheWhaleShark

I need to keep warm when it's woman out.

Just wear a hat. Or a bandana. I wore one at the shore - to keep my scalp from burning more - and I realized that I like the bandana look. Give it a shot.

Apreche

Castle Ravenloft was all the rage at PAX. Huge stack of them sold completely out. Opinions are very mixed. Some people loved it, some hated it. At least a few people who bought it regretted doing so, but others were desperate to play it over and over. I didn't play it at PAX, but I played it at board game night.

Basically, it's the same exact game as HeroQuest, Descent, and every other dungeon crawling game. However, it is greatly simplified such that it takes much less time to play. If you're someone who actually likes that sort of thing, well here you go! If you're someone who actually enjoys D&D dungeon delves where you do nothing but fight monsters, this is for you. It lets you whip out a D&D delve as quickly as any other board game, without the preparations and character creation necessary to play actual D&D.

If you are looking for an actual game of strategy and skill, or an actual game of role playing, this will be an epic waste of your time and money. If you actually enjoy dungeon delves and games like Descent, but wish they would take less time, this will save your life.

Matt

I actually liked the Ravenloft game. Got a demo at WotC on Friday afternoon. Yeah, dungeon crawling board games are beginning to become a crowded market but I think there is room for Ravenloft. Descent is a lot of fun but it is a bitch to set up, takes a long time, and is imbalanced. Ravenloft felt easy to play and set up. I think I could get through a round easily in 60 minutes and there is a time and a place for that product.

That being said I probably won't buy it. Seems like there are major production isssues now with missing pieces. Also lot of holes in the rulebook. I'll wait for the dust to settle, but more thank likely a friend will buy this one b/c I'm not a D&D junkie and they all are. Also I don't like how WotC is already milking this system with another full price game, set in a cave versus a dragon. Here you go suckers, buy the whole game over again for $60.

Apreche

The thing is, I like dungeon crawling, but not the kind of dungeon crawling that WotC keeps spitting out. The kind they do is primarily fighting monsters. You do the max avg damage to kill all the monsters and manage resources to get to the end without running out of HP. It's basically the same as pandemic.

The kind I like are actually three kinds. There's the Nethack kind where there's just so much going on with the exploring and the searching and the discovery. There's the Metroid kind, which is all about the exploring and the secret finding. And then there's the best kind which is the quality D&D kind where you have to creatively solve your way around obstacles using ten foot poles, 0 and 1st level spells, and such and such. And if there's a monster, you don't play a miniatures dice game to beat it, you come up with a clever way to drop a rock on its head by solving the mystery of the temple. If done properly, it feels a lot like a Zelda dungeon, only there isn't just one answer to each puzzle.

Notice that mazes are a key property of all the good dungeon crawls, having to actually find your way. The bad ones there's no maze. They might as well be one big room in which to fight monsters. Or just line up the monsters the way you line up nobles in Guillotine.

Wyatt

This seems like a desperate move by WotC to tie in some of the older campaign material into 4th. Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer, that Arabic setting,,, didn't fair too well in 3rd. I foresee a "Love the boardgame??? Buy the book!!!" ad campaign by PAX East.

Rochelle

Jeremy has Descent. I've only played that game once and probably won't ever again. It's just not my thing and neither is Ravenloft. I know Gabe and Tycho gave it good praise, but as Scott said it's mostly for people who want to dungeon crawl without having to DM or have limited time.

I'll spend my money on better games. :P

Matt

This seems like a desperate move by WotC to tie in some of the older campaign material into 4th. Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer, that Arabic setting,,, didn't fair too well in 3rd. I foresee a "Love the boardgame??? Buy the book!!!" ad campaign by PAX East.

Oh the WotC guy was very up front about the fact that they led off with the Ravenloft setting for their new board game line b/c they plan on trotting back out all of the Ravenloft stuff in the pen-and-paper RPG.

Wyatt

Oh the WotC guy was very up front about the fact that they led off with the Ravenloft setting for their new board game line b/c they plan on trotting back out all of the Ravenloft stuff in the pen-and-paper RPG.

WotC is owned by Hasbro. Yup, the toy company. I have this love-hate relation with there marketing. They pump out new material out faster then TSR ever did. Seriously, it took TRS from 1974 till 1989 to go from from D&D; to AD&D; 2nd Ed. WotC bought TSR in 1997, released 3rd Ed in June 2000, 3.5 came out 3 years later, and 4th was released in 2008. I suspect 4.5 will be out in 2012 and thus bring about the world end of the world. I feel like they're too use to targeting a children and need to slow down on the turnover rates before they turn off there older loyal customers.

Apreche

Oh the WotC guy was very up front about the fact that they led off with the Ravenloft setting for their new board game line b/c they plan on trotting back out all of the Ravenloft stuff in the pen-and-paper RPG.

WotC is owned by Hasbro. Yup, the toy company. I have this love-hate relation with there marketing. They pump out new material out faster then TSR ever did. Seriously, it took TRS from 1974 till 1989 to go from from D&D; to AD&D; 2nd Ed. WotC bought TSR in 1997, released 3rd Ed in June 2000, 3.5 came out 3 years later, and 4th was released in 2008. I suspect 4.5 will be out in 2012 and thus bring about the world end of the world. I feel like they're too use to targeting a children and need to slow down on the turnover rates before they turn off there older loyal customers.

There's no point in slowing down. Core rulebooks sell a ton of copies, but the supplemental books don't sell even remotely as well. Therefore, the only way they can make big sales is to get new players into the game, thus selling more core books, or make other actual games. D&D; Essentials isn't a supplement, it's a game. Ravenloft is a game. You can only sell a supplement to someone who already has a base game and is super hardcore about it. You can sell a stand-alone game to anyone. Even better if all your stand-alone games are gateway drugs into your other stand-alone games.

The other way to make big money is to come out with a new version of the core rules. The vast majority of players will upgrade to every new version, even if they come out relatively frequently. Some will stick with the old version, just like people keep playing Counter-Strike 1.6. Many of those that stay behind still buy the new book even if they hate it. Even if they hate it, they will probably end up using it since people will shift, and they will have nobody to play the old version with. The whole world shifts to the new version, and there's not much they can do about it besides play a different game.

Techparadox

Some will stick with the old version...

Some will also move to a modified iteration of the old version. When TSR announced D&D; 4.0 Paizo said to heck with that and published their Pathfinder RPG, which was basically a tweak over the 3.5 rules that addressed a lot of player complaints with D&D; 3.5 ed.

Apreche

Some will stick with the old version...

Some will also move to a modified iteration of the old version. When TSR announced D&D; 4.0 Paizo said to heck with that andpublished their Pathfinder RPG, which was basically a tweak over the 3.5 rules that addressed a lot of player complaints with D&D; 3.5 ed.

Or Burning Wheel or GURPS or anything else, of course. But so far no game has made a major dent in the D&D; monopoly.

That Pathfinder RPG does look good, though, for what it is.

Wyatt

That Pathfinder RPG does look good, though, for what it is.

I would be playing Pathfinder if BW was still unknown. I do rarely play GRUPS and heavily house ruled Cyberpunk 2020. Both has lost there glamor. Paizo and WotC had a falling out over the licensing for Dragon and Dungeon magazine. They should get every nickle they can out of this, but I don't see it the 3.5 holdouts lasting much longer. I also don't think you should disregard an older version just because a new version hit the shelf. D&D; took a big leap from 3rd to 4th, and they lost my interest somewhere along the way.

4th Ed being OGL is still surprises me. I figured WotC would have lost enough of it's niche market to subtract from what ever additional sales of Core Books the OGL created. Most people play D&D; primarily and may play something else as a side game.

Cremlian

Still rocking a 2nd edition Planescape game every Wednesday. (though it definitely is beer (hard liquor) and pretzel D&D)

Apreche

I've been kind of hankering for a D&D game that really focuses on dungeons, as opposed to dragons. It would have tons of puzzle solving, mysteries, traps, mazes. Something like co-op Shadowgate with a little less death. D&D really excels at this, especially with low level players, since you actually get to make creative use of things like thunderstones, ten foot poles, caltrops, cantrips, etc. Pathfinder looks like it would also work really well.

Of course, the thing is that even for this kind of game, Burning Wheel still takes the cake. Just look at Thelon's Rift for proof.