My Play

Over the last few weeks I’ve had the chance to play a few boardgames that are new to me, and this post is a roundup of my thoughts on them.

Parenthetically, I’ll have material for a similar post by the middle of next week. Gil Hova and his lovely wife, Heather, are touring the Maritimes, and they are stopping by for a couple of gaming sessions. They’ve brought a few titles that I want to try out – Thebes, In the Year of the Dragon, and the lesser-known game Industria, first published by Queen several years ago – along with them. I’ll share my impressions of these games soon.

In the meantime, here’s five opinions to chew on. (more…)

A few weeks ago, Seth and I were chatting over Google Talk, and discussion inevitably turned to Dirty Secrets. Just as inevitably, I started pontificating on the genre of detective fiction.

At one point, Seth asked me how well I thought Dirty Secrets would do stories in the vein of James Ellroy’s Los Angeles quartet of novels (Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz). That, in turn, led to a discussion of how the investigators played a different role in Ellroy’s books than they do in the “classic” hardboiled novels of Chandler and Ross MacDonald, which obviously were a big influence on Ellroy.

At the end of that discussion, Seth asked me if I would write up my thoughts as a piece for Dirty Secrets fans. This is my effort at writing such an essay. I will also be posting this to the Dark Omen Games forum and to Story Games in a couple of days. (more…)

I see Melissa was nice enough to post a link here to the “BGG down” Google group.

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Don’t panic. The Gathering only lasts until Sunday

Contrary to my original expectations, I have been playing a lot of two-player Race for the Galaxy (using the advanced rules, where each player selects two roles every round, of course), starting a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I have average about three-quarters of a game per day in that time.

What i didn’t foresee is that RftG is an excellent coffee shop game. I have packed everything into a couple of top-load card holders, like those used by CCG players, and I can easily carry them in the pockets of my winter jacket – or even by hand – without too much trouble. I now go down to Tim Horton’s 2-3 times a week with another member of my game group to knock out a few plays. I hesitate to call two-player better than multiplayer, but it is significantly different, and maybe more addictive.

(more…)

In part one of No Man is an Island, I discussed how characters that have relationships can make a roleplaying campaign more fun, and I gave some guidelines for creating relationships that are good at generating drama in an RPG. Now, in part two, I will expand on how to make dramatically interesting relationships by discussing the four most consistently dramatic types of relationships.

This was to be the last part in this series, but as I wrote, I found I had much more to say than I thought I did. As a result, there will be one more part in which I discuss Relationship Maps, the simplest way of organizing the relationships in a campaign. (more…)

After a prolonged hiatus, Jonathan Degann has just put up a new article on The Journal of Boardgame Design. Jonathan is among the best writers of boardgame criticism that I know of, so a new essay by him is always something to look forward to.

My joy at his new piece, “What is this board game about?” sank a bit when I thought it was going to preempt the first post of my series Elements of Elegance (yes, really, it is coming). It turns out that its focus is different enough from what I want to talk about, though, that I will only have to reference Jonathan. My article will be more than a link to “What is this board game about?” with a note saying “read this.”

Even after this relief, reading his new piece what not the same unalloyed pleasure it usually is. The main thesis is interesting, although I would differ in a few particulars. As always, Jonathan refers to particular games in his analysis, though, and I disagree strongly with the point he is trying to make with two of his examples. I think he gives short shrift to Puerto Rico, and I think he gives Caylus far too much credit.

(more…)

Yesterday, I bought a battery-operated card shuffler. The thing is a wonder, but before I use it on anything other than a normal deck of cards, I would like to know how these rigs are for wear and tear.

Does anyone know whether these things are better than or worse than hand-shuffling for causing wear on cards?