I think I'm enjoying boardgames more than RPGs these days

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But I don't think I would be qualified to advice people on the proper use of English, though I'm generally fairly good at spelling.
Trust me, we're a pretty stupid bunch; you're automatically ahead of the curve. If you need evidence, look at my earlier post.
 
I'm Dutch...

I live below sea level and there's two operational monumental windmills at a walking distance from where I live. But I don't think I would be qualified to advice people on the proper use of English, though I'm generally fairly good at spelling.
If you have an English question and your options for advice are: a 17 year old Dutch girl, a 35 year old Czech guy, an American and a Blue Spruce, which would you choose?
 
I'm Dutch...

I live below sea level and there's two operational monumental windmills at a walking distance from where I live. But I don't think I would be qualified to advice people on the proper use of English, though I'm generally fairly good at spelling.

I knew it! Windmill magic!
 
I'm torn between the American and the 17 year old Dutch girl.

Trust me, we're a pretty stupid bunch; you're automatically ahead of the curve. If you need evidence, look at my earlier post.
I'm sure the Dutch have their own set of stupidities. I may be biased because of the place where I work, though.
 
Luckily, I have both a RPG and a Boardgame group.
The boardgame group is made up of some old buddies of mine, who doen't have the time for a regular RPG game.
So we meet about once a month, and play boardgames instead.

That's cool, I'm glad you have groups for both activities.

I used to also be part of a board game group, but I eventually realized I do not enjoy the same sorts of games and play-styles that they do. Such as fucking awful Kickstarter games that someone in the group convinced themself was great because they invested a bunch of money in it, or whatever was the new hotness on Board Game Geek.

Typically for me, the types of games they played were too complex to learn & play once, then do the same with a different game next week, ad infinitum. If I'm going to put in the time and effort to learn a complex game, I'm going to want to play it a fair few times (unless it just sucks, of course).

Also, co-op games where they wanted to tell me how to take my turn. I love the idea of co-op games, and I love playing them with some people, but not that group.

I also have less time for board games now that I play in a weekly D&D game & run two several-times-per-month Savage Worlds games. Which is fine, because, although I do enjoy board games quite a bit, if I had to pick one of the two hobbies, I'd pick RPGs, hands down.
 
That's cool, I'm glad you have groups for both activities.

I used to also be part of a board game group, but I eventually realized I do not enjoy the same sorts of games and play-styles that they do. Such as fucking awful Kickstarter games that someone in the group convinced themself was great because they invested a bunch of money in it, or whatever was the new hotness on Board Game Geek.

Typically for me, the types of games they played were too complex to learn & play once, then do the same with a different game next week, ad infinitum. If I'm going to put in the time and effort to learn a complex game, I'm going to want to play it a fair few times (unless it just sucks, of course).

Also, co-op games where they wanted to tell me how to take my turn. I love the idea of co-op games, and I love playing them with some people, but not that group.

I also have less time for board games now that I play in a weekly D&D game & run two several-times-per-month Savage Worlds games. Which is fine, because, although I do enjoy board games quite a bit, if I had to pick one of the two hobbies, I'd pick RPGs, hands down.

Yeah a lot of that, fortunately doesn't happen with my group.
We are just four dudes, who have known eachother since the early nineties. So for us it's actually more of social get together, once a month. In fact, sometimes we spend more time chatting than gaming.

None of us follow boardgame kickstarters. We also have enough games, between all four of us, that we don't really need to buy new ones.

That thing about telling you what to do, doesn't exist with us. I have encountered something like that with RPGs though. Back when D20 was big with the whole character build culture. There were some annoying players and GMs, who insisted on giving unsolicited advice.
It was pretty aggravating.
 
Heh, the only time I ever played an "open game" at a game store a little while after 3rd edition hit - I'd just moved to a new area and didn't have a game group yet, figured it be fun to sign up and try out the new system.

I got chewed out by this frothing mad player because I deliberately wanted to go with a suboptimal choice for my character for roleplaying reasons. He stormed out when I couldn't stop laughing.
 
Last time I gamed with another group (some Axis & Allies), I ran into the player type who wants to play the game for everyone else. I insisted on doing my own thing. After the game, as I was on my way out the door, he made a point of telling me how he had reversed my "sub-optimal moves" and played out the rest of the game so he and I won.

Funny thing is, I got told later that he thought I was a good player, and asked now and then when I would come back. The irony being that his antics, and the disinterest he fostered in the other players because of those antics, was what convinced me to not bother coming back for another game.
 
Heh, the only time I ever played an "open game" at a game store a little while after 3rd edition hit - I'd just moved to a new area and didn't have a game group yet, figured it be fun to sign up and try out the new system.

I got chewed out by this frothing mad player because I deliberately wanted to go with a suboptimal choice for my character for roleplaying reasons. He stormed out when I couldn't stop laughing.

Goddamn basket weaver.
 
I played Elder Sign Opaopa you [insert some boyish insult here*]. It's a fun little game to pass time but nothing else.

Now, have you tried Mansions of Madness or Arkham Horror? THESE gimme that role-playing vibe.

:hehe: We have no English-only language rule here, that I know of?, so I can comprehend playful chiding as any other. Though online translation services still suck terribly. Very much luck of the translation engine...

Yes, I have played both. Arkham Horror is the better game by far. Better board game appeal, better time management, better structure, better "play balance," better variants.

Mansions takes forever to set-up; too many pieces, and though models are nice, they do not make up for such set-up tedium. Second Mansions has that asymetrical problem that Descent has: GM has all enemy pieces under one mind, Players are crazed shithouse rats who are impossible to coordinate. Third, Mansions has several mechanics, even whole scenarios!, based on subverting group cohesion -- that little extra paranoia is like lighting the shithouse on fire. End result is the "GM Player" almost has to deliberately play down their play level to even have a game.

And then there is the Mansions "app version," read: dated to specific technology version. The "GM Player" is an app, which I guess helps. But in the end it will be repetitive vs. a human, just the nature of AIs to date.

As for roleplaying them? Eh... sorta but not really. Nothing particularly satisfying to me at the least. I can believe the feeling, as I got a sense of that the first times playing them. But that rapidly goes away, especially with set-up times and repeating scenarios. Sure there is some variation, even within scenarios, but it is not really enough compared to a human GM touch in RPGs.

It has to do with the intimacy of a human reading the board state and the audience of players, which they can adjust at a finer calibration than a boardgame AI. Now that capacity to read and adjust in an RPG is of several magnitudes greater due to RPGs allowing to create new content, adjust context, and calibrate meaning more intimately to the specific audience. There really is only a superficial comparison.

But yeah, I felt that frision of excitement when I first tried those boardgames. :thumbsup: It just doesn't last, though.:cry: RPGs draw that immersive magic better and more consistently, at least for me.:dice:
 
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Yeah a lot of that, fortunately doesn't happen with my group.
We are just four dudes, who have known eachother since the early nineties. So for us it's actually more of social get together, once a month. In fact, sometimes we spend more time chatting than gaming.

I used to have a second, more casual board game group that was more like the one you described. It was great. But now all those guys have kids and/or more serious jobs that require more of their time, and they almost never have time to game anymore. :sad:
 
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