The Non-Computer Games Thread

Valrus

Valrus

Now With Even More Dumb!
This will be another "sink or swim" thread, depending on people's interest.

The Magic thread gave me the idea. I've played some really good board and card games in recent years, and I'm going to be the head of the Board and Card Games division of the gaming club at our school next year.

So I wanted to start this thread to see if people have any games to recommend, and to recommend some of my own. I'll start with the latter of those two:

Anyone ever played The Settlers of Catan? Best board game ever. And with the expansion sets it only gets better.

How about Apples to Apples? Best party game ever. It can be played for any length of time, it's phenomenally simple, and best of all it is incredibly fun.

How about any of the great games from Looney Labs? There's Fluxx, Aquarius, Chrononauts, and Icehouse (actually several games in one). All good, fairly quick, fairly easy games. Highly recommended.

Chez Geek? Lunch Money? Falling? Guillotine?

What about the Cheapass games? How about good games with a regular deck of cards? Anyone played Scum/Presidents and Assholes/The Great Dalmuti/Corporate Takeover? All different names for the same game.

Just throwing out a million game names so people will (hopefully) say, "Hey, I've played that!" and actually reply to this.

I hope this thread will take off. We'll see.

-the valrus

P.S. This was my 2^(2^3)rd post. Hopefully that counts for something in the Fate Scale. Powers of two are nifty.
 
Family Business, and Star Wars Trivial Pursuit are the only games I've been playing recently.

I highly recommend RoboRally.
 
You can't beat Risk, a great one for playing late into the early hours.

I also enjoy a little known game called 'The really nasty Horse Racing Game'. This and Risk are great because most of the game is around doing deals 'off the board'.

I always take travel scrabble with me when going on vacation (along with iBook of course) and I also enjoy a good game of backgammon or chess, though I am not that good at either of the last two.

R.
 
Hrm, who would want to play a game that has nothing to do with a computer? :confused: I don't get it...

Well, when there are enough people who are interested, Monopoly is very fun. Too bad that never happens, so I haven't played it for years :) Same with Life.

The only one I've played recently is Magic :D
 
Originally posted by roger
You can't beat Risk, a great one for playing late into the early hours.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, nothing like striving for world domination! :D
I once played Risk for two full days with a bunch of friends who were all brain-fried on psychedelics. And I won!
Hey, is Twister considered a board game? ;)
 
Twister is a great, great game.

I know what you mean about Risk - I recently played until 2am, and then had to get up at 5.30am to go into work (still drunk from many bottles of wine - lucky I don't drive to work). It is a game that normally should only go around 7 or 8 rounds and no more, but when people start forming alliances, it never stops.

You mention chemically enhanced Risk - woaah! Those big sea monsters and mermaids pictured on the board could add a dimension or two. It would be very funny to play risk after taking ecstacy - everyone would be too friendly to go to war.

:D
 
Errrr that would be great...............


Anyways I personally love monopoly. Although most people seem to develop a great dislike for playing. Risk its great too.

I love this game called balderdash. Its like the dictionary game, only theres more stuff :) I laugh so hard while playing it.
 
Axis and Allies is a great game - sort of like Risk with WWII technology, only way more intense and long-running. Takes about 6 hours to play properly. Good if you can leave it in a back room undisturbed till tomorrow...

Balderdash is OK, but there's not much to it if I recall correctly - just a mediocre dictionary and some pre-printed pads and pencils. If you have a big dictionary with obscure stuff in it, like a multi-volume OED, just borrow someone's Balderdash set for ten minutes or so to figure out the rules, and you're good to go. It's more fun with a better dictionary than theirs.
 
IMHO, Monopoly == Monotony :D

A few years back I went to a gaming convention. I thought it was insane that some people played Axis & Allies for hours on end (their games were running upwards of 10 hours, IIRC). Then I found the BattleTech players. "OK, my mech shoots at his mech." An hour later, the shot is complete, after rolling for about 100 modifiers, calculating angles and all that fun exciting stuff. "Alright, my mech starts running." Me, too. :) I heard that in the three days of the convention, they played something like twenty minutes of game time.

:p Bleargh! :p
 
Balderdash is one of the only board game's I really enjoy playing. The sequel is also pretty good (the name escapes my mind right now). Risk is great also as is Axis and Allies, I like war games. :p
 
scruffy, the actual board game balderdash is more then just a dictionary. It has categories like movies (you have to say the plot), dates (what happened on that day), acronyms (what it stands for) and people (what did they do). Its very very fun.
 
Actually googolplex, the original Balderdash was just words. The game you're describing is called "Balderdash Beyond" or something like that.

I can't stand Monopoly. Maybe it's because every time I play, I land on every space but the properties and consequently I get screwed over later in the game. I don't know - it's just not that fun to me.

Likewise Risk, though I've only played it once. My friend went and piled up on Australia, and that was the end of that. It took too long.

You who like Risk should try The Settlers of Catan. It's not interminable like Risk is; it's long, but it usually lasts three hours max, and there's no possibility of stagnation because everyone is sitting around waiting for someone else to make a move. The game just doesn't work that way. As I said before, best board game ever.

I can't stand games that last more than a few hours either, with the possible exception of tabletop RPGs, whigh are usually split up into sessions of a few hours.

And those of you who like Balderdash - I do too - you should try Apples to Apples. Really.

-the valrus
 
By the way - sorry about the double post - I think some of the categories in Balderdash Beyond are kinda dumb. In fact, I think the only worthwhile ones are movies, acronyms and word definitions. The dates and people are too much just making any old crap up; with the others, you have to make sure there's some correspondence between the thing in question and what you come up with to describe it.

I agree that you could have some fun with just a dictionary though. That would make it more interesting for the person giving the word (the dasher). You could give him/her, say, a minute to look through the dictionary and try to find an obscure word, or one with a deceptive description, and they get more points if less people guess correctly.

Bonus points if they don't even use the dictionary!

-the valrus
 
My family used to play something like Balderdash on long road trips. We'd pick odd place names off the road map, and come up with definitions for them.
 
Settler's of Cattaan with the Seefarer expansion set - definitely the best board game ever...

The best part is my friends and I only have the original german version, and half the fun is trying to discern the rules every time we play...
 
Oh cool - the original German version. Have you tried Starfarers of Catan yet? I want to (although it looks kinda cheesy), but it's like $60, and that's kind of a lot when the original Settlers with Seafarers and Cities&Knights is so good.

-the valrus
 
There are too many little rules in Risk. So LessthanMighty and I made our own rules up :) but the game still lasts for hours and hours.

what about stip poker with that special someone?

or... what is that game? where you try to bounce the quarter into a glass, and if you make it, you pick someone to take a shot of alcyahol. is it called quarters?
 
I happen to know a friend who played strip magic with his special someone. Pretty strange if you ask me :D
 
Valrus,

I haven't tried Starfarer yet for those same reasons... Looks kinda cheezy, and 2, it's 60 bucks for the game, then 30 for the 6 player add-in, then 60 for the expansion etc. etc...

Besides it's just not the same as sheep, wood, ore, brick and wheat, right?

jason
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top