So I just found yucata.de, which has a bunch of games I've never played, but comes highly recommended. Games I recognize but haven't tried include Thunderstone, Founding Fathers, Roll through the Ages, Thurn and Taxis, and War of the Roses. Oh, and they have Stone Age too. Could be worth it if someone wants to suggest something - I'd like to try Thunderstone myself.
Cool. This reminds me of my brief Fantasy Grounds experience.
Can I get an invite to the Steam group? Gamers with Jobs - Board Games (GWJBG)
My Steam ID is:
STEAM_0:1:11193373
My other Steam ID is:
I'm really going to have to ask someone to walk me through getting into one of these games.
I'm really going to have to ask someone to walk me through getting into one of these games.
What Danyboy said. But if you want a one on one session with a given game or an introduction to a given site's interface, hit me up on Steam. I'm happy to walk you through as best I can, as I know this can be daunting (Especially BSW).
1) Post about your interest in the thread Done.
2) Get an invite to the Steam Group.
3) Set up Ventrilo for the GWJ server. Also, if you've never done it before, you'll want to normalize your Vent inputs and outputs. This will make sure no one seems too loud/quiet to you or you to others.
4) Find out what games will likely get played on a given week, and go over the rules so you know what to expect. Usually people will post links to videos or pages explaining them. It's nice to avoid a 20 minute explanation before we can start playing. Plus explaining things online with just voice chat is pretty bad. Most of the online interfaces are set up for efficient play, not teaching.
5) Download the brettspielwelt client and/or set up an account at whichever site the games are going to be played.
6) Show up. The usual start time is Wednesdays at 8 EST, but games start as enough people come in.
Edit: Added a step.
Don't coddle him! He must learn as we all did.
I'm already in the group, even. The steps after that are more of the stuff I'd rather have a teen do for me.
Maybe I should spend more time on consoles.
Well in that case:
1) Kidnap a teen
2) Show them the above list
3) Threaten them with violence if they don't complete it to satisfaction
4) Profit
There are two. The one at GenCon is based on the comic. The other one is based on the TV show.
One is also by Z-man Games, the other by a relative no-name publisher (Cryptozoic Games?). Z-man has a reputation for high quality stuff. I'd definitely wait and read some impressions/reviews before buying the other one.
Cryptozoic Entertainment isn't new to the scene. They generally do licensed games, as well as print comics and such. I believe the consensus on the floor this year was that their games and floor staff were very pretty. Nobody was floored by their game mechanics.
Doesn't Z-Man tend towards very thematic games with unfortunately vague rules? If it's not them, who am I thinking of?
Z-Man puts out a lot of games. Some of them stick.
Imperial this week. Found the official rules PDF at Rio Grande Games:
http://www.riograndegames.com/upload...
Doesn't Z-Man tend towards very thematic games with unfortunately vague rules? If it's not them, who am I thinking of?
Very thematic games with unfortunately vague rules = Fantasy Flight Games.
Actually, their rules are not unfortunately vague. The rulebooks are generally well done and show some decent examples of play. But their games often do require errata to clear up some corner cases, which is a side affect of their heavy use of cards with lots of text and interactions.
I'm a big fan of both companies. FFG games are often dripping in theme and Z-Man is beginning to give them a run for their money when it comes to production values.
The dawn of the 21st century will one day be known as the Golden Age of Boardgames.
Decided to just take the plunge and signed up on SpielByWeb and am in two PBEM games - Hacienda and Tikal. Learning as I'm going.
I'd like to get in the steam group, heres my steam id: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Superso...
Tnx for the invite.
I'll take an invite as well.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/jam3/home
Anyone who wants to play Thunderstone let me know been addicted to it on yucata for awhile now, played alot of the real game as well.
I just recently found Vassal and WOW don't think thats been mentioned here.
Click on Modules, it prety much every boardgame I could think of on that list. Downloaded the Runewars module and its pretty complex, haven;t figured it out yet but, again wow just wow. A serious group like this could really use a tool like Vassal.
Hi Jam,
I'll definitely hit you up for some Thunderstone at one point.
I'll add Vassal to the list. I've heard of it and checked it out, but it all seemed a bit finnicky. We're not that serious a group, so sites with a preset interface work best to ease people in. That being said, Vassal is basically PBEM as you're emailing files around, right? So it could work well with the growing PBEM crew we've got here - but we'd need to pick a game out of the hundreds of (mostly wargames) on that list.
Oh, and first thing I checked was if it had a Game of Thrones module. It doesnt...booooooo.
Oh, and first thing I checked was if it had a Game of Thrones module. It doesnt...booooooo.
Heh, I was just about to check.
Battle of Westeros
Vassal is a fat windows client and it basically throws all the pieces of a game at you as pretty good art that you can drag and drop around between windows; Essentially vassal is a tool that allows online multiplayer physical box board gaming. It basically requires that you understand the game. I think alot of it depends on the mod and there is an underlying engine so you can hit a button to roll dice and that type of thing. I have only dabbled around with it but goto that site and hit modules and your jaw will hit the floor with how many games are on that list.
The ASL engine is a little more rules-implemented. I still had to sit there with the rulebook on my lap when I played though.
Alas, not going to be on tonight, as I'm trapped in VT with satellite internet. I'll be kicking ass next week.
VASL/VASSAL is great, but really does no rules enforcement (with very few exceptions). It's a pure toolbox. Both people need to have played before, and be willing for a STEEP learning curve on how to deal with all the windows/units/bits/cards/dice.
Need a third player for a 3-player Through the Ages game. First come first served.
Just reply with your boardgaming-online.com name and I'll add you if I can find you.
I don't think it's been mentioned where Imperial is played. Anyway, I think I want to play my "current" games tonight, so have fun everyone attending!
Wow. I was listening to Danyboy's explanation. I think I will need to read the instructions on Imperial. It sounds like it needs a good read first.
Sorry strangeblades! We were full up, or else I would have tried to convince you to stay. We had a couple others who had never played or checked the rules.
Despite that I think we got a good game in. After a few interface flubs at the start, and a few turns for people to get a feel for the game in action it was coming together. I think people were trying to gang up on me in the end, what with Britain attacking me and Dysplastic trying to buy me out of my main holdfast of Germany. (which he did in the end). So I did the only reasonable thing: Utterly abandoned Germany to the wolves and put everything I could into Italy. And hey, I it pulled off!
Big thanks to DanyBoy and Dysplastic for explaining Imperial. We had a great group and I enjoyed it immensely. The rules seemed a bit daunting, but after playing a few turns the game settled down nicely.
It was quite strange having to think about winning from an investor's point of view, rather than guiding a country to victory. Watching countries change hands was pretty fun, since I don't think I've played a game like that before.
I think folks can observe games on BSW, so that should be an option for future game nights if people want to ease into a game. I'm not sure if there is a limit to the number of observers per game, but I've been watching a fair number of other games on BSW without any hitches.
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