Well hi! Hello! [02 Mar 2008|12:49am] plainjaneann Name: Ann Cook Age:26 Location: Livingston, Montana Favorite Game(s): I have to choose? Thurns and Taxis, anything by Cheapass and Jackson, Risk, Stratego, zombies series. Why: Old fashioned playability and laid back atmosphere. 4 party-ers| break out the board games!

In hope that people are interested [28 Jan 2008|04:43pm] tuskel [ mood | anxious ] Hello, I created a new community, which can be found here: http://community.livejournal.com/old_boardgames/ As I understand, there isn't any communities for old and vintage board games in LJ yet, also none for paper dolls or for people who like making these things. So, I am posting in hope that some people here are interested and join it, to share pictures, ideas and links. Thanks for reading! :) Iris, sincerely 4 party-ers| break out the board games!

New Games [01 Jan 2008|11:45pm] mdrf_lumpy W00T!!!!! 2008 is here and we have our first two games for the new year. First is our new card game Transmogrification, a duel between 3 to 5 Shape Shifters. Using your different forms you will compete in the ultimate battle to you have superior skill and strength. Then we have L337 5p34k W0rdz, 5 games in one. The main game is a Scrabble variant. Speaking of variants you can get updated versions of our Clue, Aquire, Diplomacy and Axis & Allies variants. So visit IcePack Games today and see what's new! break out the board games!

I found this and thought it was kinda funny [12 Nov 2007|08:22pm] rabidmythbuster [ mood | cheerful ] [ music | I'm Only Happy When it Rains - Garbage ] If something like this isn't allowed to be posted here, could a maintainer delete it please? I don't know how many of you know Dane Cook, if you don't, you should listen to him, he's hilarious. Anyway, I found this on Google and just had to share it. Someone made a Monopoly board and replaced the locations with Dane Cook jokes. The pictures are behind the cut. ( Dane Cook Monopoly Board ) x-posted in a couple places. break out the board games!

Days of Wonder games [18 Aug 2007|08:19pm] esprix If anyone has purchased a Days of Wonder game (Colosseum, Battlelore, Ticket to Ride, Cleopatra, Shadows Over Camelot, Pirate's Cove, Mystery of the Abbey, Memoir '44, Gang of Four, Queen's Necklace, Fist of Dragonstones or Terra), and you're not using the online web card that comes with the game, I'd be interested in using it if you're not! :) 5 party-ers| break out the board games!

WBC Report [07 Aug 2007|04:13pm] stm4e If anyone's interested, I just posted a description of the WBC Convention on my page. break out the board games!

Arrr, me hearties [26 Jul 2007|01:28am] san_valentine As the roleplaying group was down to just four on Mon, with others being away on holiday, I had the chance to get out the lovely set of 'Buccaneer' that I won on ebay a few months ago. I never had a set myself as a child, my best friend, Lisa's family did, and we enjoyed playing it. So when I was looking for a set, it had to be the same edition, with the yellow box artwork. I love the physicality of 'Buccaneer', with the little ships and the mini treasures to put in them, especially the pearls and the sparkly diamonds and rubies. It's a shame that the bars of gold are rather a dull colour and very plasticky. It's a fun game to play, with a fair amount of luck involved, though there's also room for some strategy and bluffing. Ven was afraid to attack me near the end, because I had a lot of crew cards, which she thought probably meant a high fighting value. However, the fighting value is the difference between the total value of your red crew cards, and the black crew cards. As it happened, I had a pretty even mix of both colours, so though I had a total value of about 12, it was made up of something like 7 red and 5 black, giving a fighting value of (7-5=) 2. Which is pathetic. The chance cards can lead to some engaging silliness. Some direct you to be blown to a particular corner of the board, which may mean your ship has just been blown right across Treasure Island itself. Crews desert, wash overboard and die of Yellow Fever with sometimes astonishing regularity. It's not the most challenging or complex of games, but it is fun. And I won. break out the board games!

[26 Jun 2007|05:22pm] altersonality Hi, just introducing myself. Name: Jenn Age: 29 Location: Near Seattle, WA USA Favorite Game(s): In no particular order.... Settlers, To Court the King, Ingenious, Lost Cities, Yinsh, Ticket to Ride, Thurn and Taxis, Carcassone. I probably forgot some. ;) Why: Because I enjoy them? But really, there are different things I enjoy about each game. Abstract games are a favorite of mine, so Yinsh and Ingenious are ones I'd play all the time if I could. I love route games like TTR and Thurn and Taxis. So on and so forth. I'm pretty new to the hobby, though I loved games as a kid. Didn't have anyone to play with regularly, so I just kind of dropped it. Most of my gaming, save some cards or dominoes, is done online. I'm disabled as as of right now, online is the easiest way to play. I guess it also has to do with all my gaming friends living in other states. I play at Brettspielwelt, Asobrain (Settlers), Days of Wonder, and I've found some other online games that I have yet to try. Am also soon to try gaming via email and with online randomizers (maccaj is my main gaming friend). I'd like to try any Reiner Knizia game, as I'm a huge fan of his. I also have Chez Dork to try as soon as I get all the cards scanned (aforementioned online randomizer play). Being a huge political geek, there are a few election and presidents related games I'd love to try, and also the medical games to tide my med geek tendencies. break out the board games!

[26 Jun 2007|02:53pm] maccaj Hi all. Just joined. I'm kind of a fledgling gamer, still getting into the hobby... I don't get much of a chance to play IRL because I'm disabled and don't drive, so most of my gaming is done on Brettspielwelt. This has not stopped me from buying hard copies of games in fits of optimism. ;) My only regular IRL gaming partner is my sister, who is 22 but is mildly mentally impaired (functions at a 7-8 year old level) which limits my gaming options... but I'm addicted enough to sit around trying to figure out how to play other games with my gamer friends by email (including ones that weren't necessarily designed to be played that way... online randomizers are great for assembling two identical master decks on both ends of the keyboard...). Name: Meg Age: 25 Location: near Atlanta, GA Favorite Game(s): My all time favorite game is Blue Moon City. After that, in no particular order - Thurn & Taxis, Ingenious, Blue Moon, Chez Geek, Through the Desert, To Court the King, Carcassonne, Settlers, Lost Cities, a super geeky game called Med IQ (basically Trivial Pursuit for docs and doc-wannabes, includes a solitaire variant), Ticket to Ride. Why: BMC, I love all of the options it presents. It's a great game without being a brain-melter. Same for T&T and Carc. Ingenious is great for a quick and dirty game, as is Lost Cities. Through the Desert, I haven't quite mastered yet, but it's fun to figure out. Blue Moon has breathtaking art (I'm a sucker for good art... presentation can make or break a game for me, sadly), and it's a great 2p battle game... my fave deck is the Aqua deck. To Court the King is much maligned as "super yahtzee", but it's a lot of fun in a group, and it's something my sister enjoys and understands how to play (she likes rolling ten dice at once). Settlers is fun, although I can get irritated with it when the dice aren't rolling my way. Med IQ is a game where I can get my geek on, TTR is a game my sister and I can play. Chez Geek is just a blast... you have to have the right group of people, but if everyone is in a silly mood, it's a great party game. Games I'd like to try/ haven't broken in yet: Citadels, Loot, Die Macher, Scarab Lords, Tigris & Euphrates, 1960: The Making of a President (not published yet), Infection, Shear Panic, Rome, Celtica, Alchemist, Stonehenge, Hameln. I also mess around with how to make board games more accessible for physically disabled gamers such as myself. As a Knizia fan and Eurogamer, I love bags of bits, modular boards etc, but handling them all without half of them scattering all over the floor can be frustrating. 7 party-ers| break out the board games!

Hi everyone! [18 Jun 2007|05:38am] nvk I'm Kevin, welcoming myself to the group. I have recently moved to South Florida (Ft Lauderdale area) and would love to find some people to play board games with. Seems like there are plenty of chess clubs, but it's always a little harder to find people into a more diverse selection of sit-down games. My favorites include Scrabble and Puerto Rico. Settlers drives me nuts. I'd also like to tell everyone about my recent project, an Internet game where you take these letters glued together like tetris pieces, put them on a Scrabble-like board, and find all the words you can like in Boggle. It's a little rough around the edges in some places, but it's getting neater every day and I'd love to get some more people playing. You can try it by going to http://games.wode.com. ( Here's a screenshot... ) Happy gaming! 4 party-ers| break out the board games!

Catan [11 Jun 2007|08:34am] epi_lj Okay, so most board gamers have some kind of opinion on the Catan franchise. It's the game that seems to set some people into an addictive fire from which they never emerge and which other people look upon with great disdain. Some time ago, we picked up the base "Settlers of Catan," game. We started playing it with a couple of friends, once -- just a spin through of a few turns to learn the rules. I decided then that I didn't like it, and we shelved it. I haven't played it since. Yes, it was a snap judgment based on too little gameplay when I hadn't gotten a feel for the mechanics, but there you have it. This Sunday we had a games day and my friend j0hnnyb brought over his Cities and Knights of Catan set. kydi was also playing, and I know she's a huge fan of the franchise, so I figured that I should set aside my issue to run through it. We played it, I actually won (much to my surprise), but I still didn't think it was fantastic. However, I didn't strongly dislike it the way I did the first time. As trivial as it sounds, a big part of it may have been the frame for holding the map pieces in place that came with Cities and Knights. I do recall being really peeved with the way the board distorted and required re-pushing-together every time someone touched it the first time around. However, I'm looking for an opinion on something. My impression, and bear in mind that this is based on one play through (although I had the same impression during the few rounds played previously) is that the game is astoundingly luck-based. Now, I'm often playing games that have no luck element whatsoever, which skews that a bit (although we did play Arkham Horror after, which I love but which has a ridiculous amount of die rolling and card drawing -- perhaps it doesn't bother me in that game because the game doesn't purport to be a strategy game on any level). In particular, I played a couple of long shots -- I put all four of my cities on touching points of just a few tiles such that if any of those tiles were rolled I got four cards out of it -- and I won mostly because in the last third of the game, those long shots paid out for me ridiculously frequently. If you looked at the statistical markers, other people had played a far more sensible strategy, but I just happened to get really lucky and pulled ahead by a huge margin because of it. There were a few other luck-based things which worked strongly in my favour (drawing the "re-active all your knights for free" card immediately after the pirates arriving an deactivating everyone's knights ... twice, drawing the "displace someone's knight free" card right after someone placing a knight to block me on a segment where they had nowhere to back off to, drawing the "build a city for super cheap" right after all the other players had stolen the extra cards I needed to build a city I really needed at that point in time). Overall, I'm not a hardcore "luck ruins any game" person, and I do know people like that. However, it felt like a cheap victory to me, and it really did feel like luck was a far larger factor in the game than anybody's strategic efforts. Is that usually the case? Two of the four players were new to the game, so we didn't have a well-developed strategy, but the other two players had been quite long-time players. 17 party-ers| break out the board games!

Hello everyone =D [09 Jun 2007|06:25pm] rabidmythbuster [ mood | chipper ] [ music | Somewhere Only We Know - Blake Lewis ] Name:  Katie Age:  19 Location:  Balt. Maryland Favorite Game(s):  My lists for anything change as time goes on, and my lists are never really complete, so I'm just going to list games that I know in 10 years time I will still love.  My top favorite game is Trivial Pursuit (currently Pop Culture 2 edition).  I love anything with trivia, esp. trivia not everyone would know.  I also love Cranium, Monopoly, Scene It [insert whatever edition here], Stratego, and a couple others I can't think of at the moment. Why:  Like I said, I like anything that tests my knowledge.  I love Trivia!  The other games I like because they are childhood favorites (monopoly and stratego).  I just love games, I love being able to sit down and just waste an hour of time on a game. break out the board games!

As requested, an introduction. [30 May 2007|09:08am] vrimj Name: Melissa Age: 30 Location: Tallahassee, Fl Favorite Game(s) and Why: I don't have a solid favorate's list yet, but this is what I have played and enjoyed in the last month (not complete) Carcasone- I enjoy the non-obvious stratgy and the way it repays so well, still working on "seeing" farms San Juan- Like how this changes with number of players and has a good balance of stratgy and skill, also fits in my purse. Imperial- Only have played with 6, looking to try again with three and the investor card option.  This is a really intersting twist on the war game since the wars don't really matter. Ur- I am still working on this, usually end up playing the two player which limits the complication, but I like the vaious stratgies that come out of a simple mechnism. Illumnanti- This is fun, but more for the group dynamics then the game Power Grid- A consistant favorate, I like that the game is moderatly complcated, but that you can see all the complicatons on the board in front of you. break out the board games!

Relics [29 May 2007|12:38am] san_valentine I visted Mum and Dad last week. Thye've been planning to move house, so they've been having a grand clear out. One of the boxes left for me so sort through had some of my childhood board games in. There was a lovely complete set of Cludeo and Totopoly. Also the 'Game of Life' I bought as a teenager, via a small ad in the local paper. Most nostalgic were Monopoly and Battling Tops. The Monopoly set is special not only because we played it so often but because somehow or other I lost all the houses and hotels. I can't think how I managed this but there you go. I cunningly substituted the two smallest sizes of lego brick. They were all still there in the box. Battling Tops was an Xmas present from my older brother, Chris. When I opened it on Xmas morning, two of the tops had already been assembled. Chris had 'wanted to be sure that it worked' before he gave it me. That must have been thirty years ago, and I haven't forgotten it. break out the board games!

Boardgame Horror Story!! [10 May 2007|12:01am] sidekickdecoy This is the tale of Scary Harry (An alternate name but gets the point across none the less). My gaming group met Harry one day at the local game shop while we were picking up our new boxes of goodies. Harry was very large, not that I have any hatred for the larger kind (Most of my family is of the large gene), very loud, and unfortunetly very smelly. None the less we gave him a chance as anyone who likes games is pretty well included into our gaming group. The night chosen for gaming went well until Harry offered to get Krispy Kreme Donuts. Myself and another buddy of mine decided we'd help out and rode with him. Scariest experiance of my life. Squeezed into a small Toyota pickup truck with Metallica blairing (Good music at least), Harry driving down a residential street going 75, air guitaring, and headbanging with his eyes closed. That was the last time I saw Harry, but his smell on the other hand lingered in the couch for days, even after febreeze. He will forever be burned in my memory. Does anyone else out there have any scary stories with gaming? 14 party-ers| break out the board games!

Introduction [09 May 2007|01:44pm] reediewes Name: Wes Age: 20 Location: Reed College (Portland, OR) Favorite Game(s): Citadels, Dungeonquest, Settlers of Catan Why: Citadels is amazing--it has gorgeous card art, and the backstabbing intrigue aspect is really appealing to my group of friends. (Along those lines we also like Succession, but don't play as often.) Dungeonquest is sheer schadenfreude--it reminds us of D&D gallows humor, where heroes don't always come back alive from their dungeon crawls. Settlers of Catan is a game I play with my father and brother whenever I return home--we add both expansions and play for five-hour sessions, ignoring the victory point limit. Additionally, I just ordered Runebound online; I expect it to be here in a few days. I love games: playing them, talking about them, reading reviews. This is great, because Reed has a vault full of board games and RPG sourcebooks from as long ago as the 70s. I couldn't be happier. 3 party-ers| break out the board games!

Silly Games Evening [01 May 2007|02:53am] san_valentine The weekly role-playing group was down two members this evening - so it was board game time instead. I was pleased as it gave me a chance to get out my new copy of 'Guillotine'. I was introduced to this game while staying with an American friend a couple of years ago, and throughly enjoyed it. I got myself a set last month and this is the first chance I've had to use it. It's a card-based game, with plenty of opportunities to be evil to the other players. Each game is of three rounds (referred to as days).The game setting is revolutionary France, and the object is to score as many points as possible over the three days, by executing nobles. The nobles are lined up in front of the guillotine, ready to have their heads chopped off, but they rarely stay in the same order for long.   Game play is fairly straightforward: one each turn you play an action card, collect a noble, and take another card. Action cards let you rearrange the line, pick up extra cards, steal cards from other players or force them to discard cards. After the first couple of rounds, it plays quite quickly and is a lot of fun. Even if I didn't win any games. After that we dug through our stock of Cheapass games and pulled out 'The Big Idea'. In this one you get six cards with adjectives or nouns that you put together to build some amazing (and generally unlikely) product. Examples from tonight's game are Bourgoise Puppy Shampoo, Self-Heating Duckie and Decadent Magic Pontiff Bubbly. You have come up with a sales pitch for your product, then there's a couple of rounds of investment, and a roll of a D6 for each product to determine if it's sold, and how much the return is on each share invested. Winner is the player with the most money at the end of the game.    There's a lot of fun to be had from combining cards to create new products, and in coming up with the sales pitch. Asha claimed her Invisible Grill was an aid to dieters, because it took so long to find it before you could cook anything on it. And the Self-heating Duckie was exactly what you need to keep your bathwater warm over long soaks. I did quite well with my Sports-Utility Cereal Toaster - just the thing for producing a warm breakfast on those wilderness holidays.    I've played this game a couple of times before, and we really enjoy it. It's pretty straightforward to pick up, and you don't have to think too much about strategy - you just enjoy. 1 party-er| break out the board games!

Friday the 13th is Free at ConQuest Sac ! [08 Apr 2007|09:29am] frellingbored From http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conquestsac: Hi there! In less than a week ConQuest SAC II begins and it promises to be a fun weekend!  We look forward to seeing you there! OH LUCKY DAY: CONQUEST SAC II is FREE on the night of FRIDAY the 13th! Enjoy an evening of gaming on us and come on down to our new hotel location at the Sacramento Marriott in Rancho Cordova. It's our way of saying thanks to the community for all their support! No Badge Required for Friday Evening - Gaming starts at 6 pm. The special convention hotel room rate of $89 has also been extended! But Hurry! There are a limited number of rooms at this price. Call the RanchoCordova Marriott at 1-916-638-1100 and tell them you are with ConQuestConventions. ConQuest SAC II sponsored by Great Escape Games April 13-15, 2007 Sacramento Marriott Rancho Cordova To Register online for ConQuest SAC, go to www.conquestsac.com and click Register. Featuring tons and tons of gaming! Board Games, Role Playing Games, Historical Miniatures Games, Fantasy and Science Fiction Games, Collectible Card Games, Collectible Miniatures Games, Wargames, Strategy Games, Euro-Style Games and more! "Total ConQuest" Warhammer Tournaments Theocracy of the Pale RPGA Regional Events B-17 Queen of the Skies Tournament World of Warcraft CCG Tournaments Special Guest Ken Hite Region 2 L5R Kotei Charity Silent Auction Friday Midnight Madness Flea Market Special Hotel Room Rate of $89 EXTENDED! CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR ROOM NOW __._,_.___ break out the board games!

ConQuest SAC Stay at the Hotel - Earn Mondo Bucks! [27 Mar 2007|10:31am] frellingbored RE: Con Quest Sacramento gaming convention, April 13-15 at the Marriott Rancho Cordova: (Forwarded from convention organizer) ConQuest SAC 2007 - Staying at the Hotel So, here we are! Year two of Sacramento's own gaming convention! And we want to thank those of you who have already pre-registered for the convention. But we need your help if ConQuest SAC is to become a permanent event. When we book the hotel for the convention, we attempt to keep the hotel convention rate room cost as low as possible. We also have to agree to sell so many hotel rooms, or we have to pay for them ourselves. Currently, our numbers are somewhat lower than they need to be, which is why we are asking for your help. We need about another 50 people to book rooms for the two nights (April 13-15) of the convention before the hotel rooming deadline of March 31. If we hit our target of 170 room nights for the weekend, then we will issue each attendee who purchased a weekend pass (silver, or regular) and who pays and stays for two nights at the convention hotel (Sacramento Marriott Rancho Cordova,) a $40 Mondo Buck certificate good with some vendors in the dealers room! (Only one Mondo Buck certificate issued per two night stay. Mondo Bucks issued at registration on Sunday morning. Bring ID and hotel receipt with you. No Mondo Bucks will be issued if you qualify for a badge refund for volunteering, being a Game Master, volunteer staff, etc.) To book at the hotel just call the Marriott at (916) 638-1100 and tell them you are with the ConQuest Gaming Convention. The convention rate is $89 a night. Thank you so very much for your support, as we work to create the convention that Sacramento asked for. For more hotel information, go to the ConQuest SAC website  (www.conquestsac.com) and click on convention info. Volunteer Staffing Volunteers are needed to work the registration, Merchant's Quarters, flea market and silent auction areas. Working at least 6 verifiable hours in one, or a combination, of these areas earns you a refund of your registration fee. Please reply to this email for more information or to volunteer.   See you in Sacramento!   Roxanne Diesel  operationsdirector@avalongamecon.com Show Director Mondo Wrangler   Avalon Game Conventions http://www.con-quest.com ConQuest Sac www.conquestsac.com break out the board games!

[04 Mar 2007|12:51am] unopeneddoor So, a friend of mine wanted us to try out the new World of Warcraft trading card game. Has anyone here tried it? I bought a couple boosters and a starter deck, but haven't played it yet. I think this is going to be just another trading card also ran. It's going to run for a few years then fizzle. I like the mechanics. I really do. They address some problems that Magic: The Gathering has has. In Magic you have to use Mana to cast spells. So, if you have a hand that has the wrong kinds of Mana in it you don't get to play, you just lose. Now there's all sorts of tricks and analysis you can do to minimize the amount of times that happens. But every now and again you just get Mana hosed. In WoW they call Mana "resources". You can place any spell you'd normally use face down to use as a resource instead. So, you'll never get mana hosed. That's really good. I'm all for mechanics that let you play. What I don't like is how they've built so many profit models into the game. In MtG you have 3 levels of rarity, Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Out of a 15 card booster you get 1 Rare, 3 Uncommon, and 11 Common. In WoW you have FIVE levels of rarity. Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. Out of 4 boosters I got 2 Epic, 10 Uncommon, and 48 Common. So, you'll have to buy a LOT more boosters to build the deck you want to play. In MtG you have 5 colors, and you can mix those any way you like. In WoW you have to have a "hero" who represents yourself. All cards in your deck have to match the traits your hero has, the most significant of which seems to be his class. There are 9 classes, so effectively there's 9 colors. Granted the rarity won't matter if you're playing in a Booster Draft format. These trading card companies really like Booster Drafts because it sells a LOT of cards. Basically everyone sits down at a table. Everyone opens a booster, and picks a card. You pass the remaining cards to the next person. You do this several times, then build a deck and play against people. In MtG the usual number of boosters needed per player is 3. Right now from what I've seen in WoW the usual number of boosters needed per player is 4. Booster Drafts don't encourage casual play. You don't have a booster draft with your buddies over lunch. You might bring one of your decks though. But with 5 levels of rarity and 9 colors WoW is going to be very expensive to build a decent deck for casual play. If people get frustrated with how much money they're spending to just play with their friends for fun why would they go to a booster draft at a card shop? And I definitely won't be spending the $$$ it would take to make a decent constructed deck for a WoW tournament. Who can afford to? I mean in MtG you have to buy a couple boxes of each set in the block, then buy whatever single cards you're missing for your deck. I can only imagine how many boxes you'd have to buy to be in a similar condition in WoW. I'd wager 4 boxes for each seat? At $85 a box that's a lot of $$$. I'm assuming they probably won't limit the number of sets in a tourney at first. And they're already working on an expansion. So, within a couple months it'll cost you $680 to get a decent card base to work with. I just don't see people paying that. Has anyone here bought enough boxes to get most of the cards, to the point where they can buy singles if they need to? What do you think, do you think the new mechanics and WoW name will be enough to carry it over, or do you think they're going to price themselves out of the market? 3 party-ers| break out the board games!

navigation [ viewing | most recent entries ] [ go | earlier ]