Did some, read it all later... it can be VERY funny IF, and only IF, the players and GM are on the same wavelength of absurd funny, ilogical things that are, however, accepted as true fact, are able to "limit" their knowledge or react fast when another player shows it ("oh, a tree" "how do you know what a tree is? Are you a Communist Mutant traitor? Die Scum!!!"), and have no qualms about dying a lot or killing each other a lot for the most ridiculous reasons. We are talking about Fallout meets Terry Pratchett's Discworld... with each player having 5 clones of his character (who is always a mutant and a member of a conspiracy... both illegal things XD). You can laugh a lot or have a very short lived gaming group.
Im looking for a game to play with the wife. She is more of an apples apples and buzzword kinda person so im looking for a good 2 player game to gently introduce her to other game generes. I have heard Carcasoone and Kingdomino are good for this. Anyone got some feedback / suggestions?
Carcasonne works better with more people playing than just 2. It works OK with 2, but really works better with 4+.
I think it was d6 based, but as an old-school RPG be ready for tons of text and little (if really funny) ilustrations... https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/Paranoia And the first edition player's handbook was just 25 pages XD
Now I have to suggest it to my GM Beside that, played another couple of Terra-forming Mars with some extensions and we definitely all love this game. Funny fact, each time a new player joins us, she/he wins . Not a board game but one we all really like too: Star Realms A deck building game where everyone start from scratch (no pre-build deck or booster or anything like that). It works great at 2 and 3 but I'm not convinced with the 4 players mode. For those who prefer a fantasy setting vs a Sci-Fi one, its little brother Hero Realms is great too (consider it a V2) and works for 4 players better than I expected.
First, a few questions: - Are you looking for a competitive game or a cooperative game? - With miniatures or without them? - Lot of randon (like using many dice or deks of cards)? - Complex with lot of thinking involved or just quick and fun? - Thematic game (like Lovecraft-inspired)?
The first game Jaipur . It's a quick card game. Later Pandemic. It's a cooperative game. And she wanna more difficulty A feast for Odin.
@Flipswitch I 100% recommend Paranoia. It's black humour, good healthy treachery, satire and absurdity all rolled into one. So funny to play, you need the right group (sense of humour with a streak of inanity) but if you get it, it's bloody brilliant.
The basic concept of the game, for those who don't know, is that you live in Alpha Complex. You have always lived here, and never been anywhere else, although Alpha Complex is big and sprawling and only half inhabited so you probably haven't seen much of it, especially as you have lived your life in a drug-induced haze (along with everyone else, these pills are your designated lunch break pills Citizen!) Alpha Complex is run by The Computer, who is Your Friend. The Computer is perfect and benevolent, and you of course trust The Computer in all things, don't you Citizen? Thought so. You have recently been promoted to a Troubleshooter, which of course will confuse you. How can there be Trouble to Shoot if Your Friend The Computer runs everything and is perfect and benevolent? Asking such questions is above your clearance level Citizen. But there definitely are Commie Mutant Traitors out there, in their Secret Societies, everyone knows that. Your job is to root them out! Membership of a Secret Society makes you a Traitor! (all PCs are in a random secret society) Being a Mutant makes you a Traitor! (all PCs have a random mutation) Being a Commie makes you a Traitor! (Alpha Complex is a Communist Dystopia with The Computer as a brutal dictator) Being a Traitor is punishable by TERMINATION. You aren't a Commie Mutant Traitor are you? ARE YOU?!?? Good, don't even joke about that. If you were then I'd be guilty of fraternising with Commie Mutant Traitors, which results in TERMINATION. Though not for my clones, which are not guilty by association of being me, we aren't Barbarians (what is a Barbarian? Questions like that are above your clearance level, Citizen). The arbitrator of who gets TERMINATED is Your Friend The Computer, who of course does not make mistakes, and therefore anyone TERMINATED by The Computer is by definition a Commie Mutant Traitor. Thank you Computer, for keeping us safe!
Tokaido is considered and excellent gateway game. Its one of my wife's favourites. The base game is a great relaxing, thematic intro to board games. The crossroad expansion takes away the chill for aggressive point grabbing XD We also always go to love letter when guests come over. Fast and fun and a good way to engage non gamers. I just got ROOT delivered from a kickstarter. Can't rate this highly enough. The asymmetry means its difficult to teach and not necessarily for non gamers. But its so goddamn excellent. Haven't been floored by game design like this since Kingdom death or Santorini.
Survive: Escape from atlantis is a pretty good gateway, my 3yo keeps asking if he can play dad's fish-game so I'm trying to figure out how to tweak the rules a little to make it easier for under-5s
I picked up the reprint of Cyberpunk 2020 and the Chrome books at Gen Con and my (currently) D&D group have shown interest. Now to work out how much house-ruling I need to do before I'm happy running it.
On short, and using moder examples: Fallout's craziest Vault, with a robot (like those with brains the Mechanist DLC adds) running everything (and BEING the Vault), and distorted values that add levels to craziness. With 5 clones per character, which get consciousness uploads constantly, but are not you, so if you are a convicted communist mutant of a secret society, that does not mean your clones, perfectly similar to you in all, with your mind and memories, are... Fun times! XD Step 1: hacking, unless you go with the "engineer wire-hacks the accesses" route a lot of gaming groups used, needs to be either narrative with an NPC Netrunner, or heavily changed (it works in the PC games because those are single player!) Step 2: frigging full borgs. NEVER ever allow the players to get one, the crazyness goes through the roof even with the basic Gemini ones. I say this for simplicity's sake, btw, not because they break the game (the game encourages you to throw mercs and security against the players if they behave like savages... this is no D&D, Dorothy! XD). However, let your players destroy enemies that they should, like in Monte Cook's Conan D20 most of the combats are like in a MMORPG: tons of rabble and adds, and few memorable figths. Unless they ask for it, that is. Step 3: background. You need it a lot to make it live, and there are GREAT books for that (the Chromebooks are just shopping lists, so nope, not those). The best is the Rache Bartmoss' guide to the Net. Euroguide Plus was disturbingly visionary about Spain, btw... Characters are great, btw. Step 4: Adventures. The basic book is good, but a few books are great. Stories from the Forlon Hope is a good one to get the feelings of the setting (I GM'd the one with a truck and my players loved it... it was a lot of Mad Max!). I even made an adventure (in spanish) based on the Screamers film, using tons of details from Half Life's Black Mesa compound as the scenario (the players had been sent by a rival company to steal some secrets... and the experiment had gone horribly "right").
Much like in Ghost in the Shell, hacking takes the netrunner away from the rest of the party. Probably best to run an NPC netrunner. Alternatively, go for massive Augmented Reality-enhanced hacking (like in Cybergeneration), so everyone can see the Hellhound ICE rez to eat the party. You will probably want/need to tweak the hacking system to not require someone to physically plug in to every system. Just some of them. Combat is lethal. If you get hit, you're going to be sucking. Ergo, don't get shot at in the first place! The perfect run is where the target never knows they were hit. Alternatively, try to make it look like you got caught on the way in when you are on your way out. Decide where on the scale of gutterpunk to Ghost in the Shell operatives you want to be. You can probably steal Shadowrun adventures for gutterpunk level, boosting cars or other stuff for Vinnie down at the corner. But if you're running a higher level of operation, you may well run afoul of Full Borgs, ACPA (power armor), or worse. How does it get worse than a squad of ACPA, you ask? I have the Fourth Corporate War books, and at the end of the CW4, the US government declares martial law and deploys the Army. Companies of ACPA, supported by flights of combat aerodynes and a platoon of tanks. You *will* stop fighting, one way or another. At the higher levels, you may decide to allow your characters to go full-borg (or wear ACPA suits). Don't have a mix of mere mortals and borgs or ACPA. Again, Ghost in the Shell shows what happens when mere mortals (Saito, Togusa, and old man Aramaki) get in fights with full borgs. The humans get squished really quick! I absolutely love the Lifepath system from Cyberpunk, and if you change 'corporation' to 'guild' it works in fantasy, too. The Plotpath system from Cybergeneration is also pretty cool. In theory, Plotpath is what becomes the Lifepath of an adult Edgerunner, but you can still use the Plotpath in a general game. I have separate PDFs of just the lifepath and plotpath that I share under Fair Use. Don't be afraid to smack your players down if they start really making a body count. Warn them ahead of time that getting too messy will bring down massive heat on them, but call down that ACH-47 Dragon gunship if they get too many people mad at them. For an idea of what is probably 'acceptable' to a cyberpunk setting, use the crime rate from Chicago. Significantly deviate from that (or worse, sign your kills or something) and you will get unwanted attention. Or, maybe have them 'in the area' when someone else gets smacked down so they get to see the wrath of a dragon.
Just got Space Alert and Dungeon Lords, which completes my collection of Vlaada games. Looking forward to taking my usual game group through the misery simulator this Friday.
Played Dungeon Petz for the first time today. It's fucking amazing, even if I kept getting the shittiest draws possible, figuratively and literally (at one point I held the entire collection of green poo cards). And i say it as someone who hates Pokemon and pet-raising games in general.
Petz is amazing. I wish it wasn't slightly too Vlaada for my group. It's definitely more accessible than Lords though. Obsidian Protocol looks dope, as does Mech Command RTS. Anyone here played Farsight?
@Flipswitch , Solar and I Picked up Farsight at UKGE (he got the game I got the pretty models), it's pretty good. Also been meaning to pick up Petz for ages, love Lords and i've always had my eyes on it but was worried it may have been to similar from what i've heard.