Pre-Electronic Games

[Cryptid]

Lots of TTRPGs and board games on-site, but no one with whom to play them. Main obstacle is the language barrier, another is the relative poverty of the people around me. Hard to get any kind of game going for 4 or 5 other people when each one brings a few family members and they all expect a free meal.

I miss the American Midwest for its winters, which provoked people to overcome their cabin fever with any form of social recreation, including <* GASP *> Dungeons & Dragons -- a game that is still popular among intellectuals, but is still reviled among Christian Evangelicals, even after 40+ years!

 

[AuAL]

Traditional Board Games I enjoyed or still enjoy playing:

Go

Go. Wei chi, Igo, Baduk. Did I mention I enjoy playing Go? (Special Interest)

 

[Toirtis]

Pre-electronic games:
Chess
Go
D&D
Scrabble

More recent, non-electronic games:
CaH
Call of Cthulhu
Exploding Kittens
Tanto Curore
...and many more.

 

[Cryptid]

Trying to wrap my head around the 'spirit' of a game called Sungka. There has to be a method similar to "Card-Counting" to score a win every time.

 

[Cryptid]

If magic was real, then how would it work?

Would there be an actual, physical force involved? How would it be measured? What quantum particle would carry the force? What would be the parameters of the carrier particle? How would it relate to the known carrier particles?

These questions came up in an after-game discussion. One person, a true believer in all things magical, stated that you do not have to know how magic works because it just works, that's all.

So what are your thoughts? How would you answer the first six questions in this post?

 

[Misery]

If magic was real, then how would it work?

Would there be an actual, physical force involved? How would it be measured? What quantum particle would carry the force? What would be the parameters of the carrier particle? How would it relate to the known carrier particles?

These questions came up in an after-game discussion. One person, a true believer in all things magical, stated that you do not have to know how magic works because it just works, that's all.

So what are your thoughts? How would you answer the first six questions in this post?

Interesting questions. Just bear with me a moment as I excitedly ramble about this.

In fiction, my favorite magic "system" is actually from Discworld. I just loved how it worked in that.

In Discworld, magic is sorta treated as a bizarre science (unless the rule of funny says otherwise)... one of the most frequently recurring wizard characters, Ponder Stibbons, is like this super nerdy guy who constantly researches the how/why and does experiments and such. There's things like his experiments to try to split the "thaum" (the particle behind magic in Discworld) and they also build this giant computer/AI named Hex (which for some reason is partly powered by ants, because this is Discworld and it was written by Terry Pratchett). There's one memorable scene where they have this thing called the "Cupboard of Curiosities" or at least I think that's what it's called, which is this... recursive dimensional thing. Drawers within drawers within drawers, bending space and time to fit more drawers, the thing in its closed state is enormous. And who knows what's in some of them (most are empty)... Ponder and his team are in the process of exploring and experimenting with it over time (slowly, carefully, because it's an unknown artifact). At one point the main characters of that particular book need a particular gizmo which Ponder knows is somewhere in the Cupboard, and he knows WHERE it is, but trying to open that on his own to a very specific spot? No wizard could do that, it's too complicated. He cant just wave a wand to get to the specific drawer within what is possibly an infinite recursive series of them. Hex, though, being basically a magic-powered supercomputer AI, can get in there, so they have it do that (and everyone has to stand way the heck back as the cupboard goes berserk during the opening process).

And the series as a whole does stuff like that a lot... while the wizards can do certain spells (like a basic fireball) by hand, bigger spells require more complicated processes, and they can have unexpected side effects. Like, a long-range teleport spell has to take into account the spin of the Disc, or whoever is teleporting will end up as a long red smear on the ground when they get there, and the teleport pulls in some nearby mass from the destination as part of the process to make up for the momentum. Or there's my absolute favorite part, the "sorting machine". The most hilarious character, Bloody Stupid Johnson, in the middle of inventing this mail sorter gizmo he decided that pi is a very messy number. Shouldnt have all them decimals. He thinks it should be exactly 3 because that's more clean. So he somehow makes it so the machine can do that within a radius around it, by altering the laws of physics to make it so that pi is 3, just within that radius (all of this happening long before the events of the book). Which sounds great and all but the side effect is that the thing is now horribly dangerous. Even the wizards say that nobody should go anywhere near it. At one point later in that book, this vampire guy is attacking the main character in that room, who dodges out of the way, the vampire crashes into the sorter, or at least he would have crashed into it if he hadnt come apart and splattered all over the place just from entering that radius. Turns out, when the laws of physics are all bent into different shapes, Stuff Happens when you get in that range. So, "big magic" (or similar things, "magic" isnt the only unusual force in Discworld) tends to have side effects... it's not this perfect thing always 100% within the user's control. At least, not when what's being used isnt fully understood.

There's a LOT of stuff like that in the series. As comedy-focused as Discworld is, I really did like that sort of magic/science combination in terms of how it is approached. It just... sorta makes sense to me, really.

I dunno if that answers the questions properly, but that all came to mind after reading your post there. And yes I am a fan of Discworld, how could you tell?

 

[Hypnalis]

@Cryptid

I play modern board games.
"Frosthaven" is an example of a game close enough to old-school TT games (RPGs, Minis) to "scratch the same itch", but simplified enough that it doesn't take as much time (though still heavyweight for that kind of board game)
This is the original:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhavenThis is V2 (improved + new environment, scenarios):
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/295770/frosthaven
They're cooperative, so in that respect more like TTRPGs than "military simulation-style" games.
There's no need for a GM, so 2 players is fine, 1 works fine if you like solo.

FWIW, about magic:
I think your gamer friend is right. It's better to just assume it works as specified.
Making magic seem more or less consistent with early 21st century science would be difficult, and probably make for bad story-telling.

@Misery's long teleport example is a good one. Discworld works because it's neither too serious nor too unrealistic.

 

[Misery]

@Cryptid

I play modern board games.
"Frosthaven" is an example of a game close enough to old-school TT games (RPGs, Minis) to "scratch the same itch", but simplified enough that it doesn't take as much time (though still heavyweight for that kind of board game)
This is the original:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhavenThis is V2 (improved + new environment, scenarios):
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/295770/frosthaven
They're cooperative, so in that respect more like TTRPGs than "military simulation-style" games.
There's no need for a GM, so 2 players is fine, 1 works fine if you like solo.

FWIW, about magic:
I think your gamer friend is right. It's better to just assume it works as specified.
Making magic seem more or less consistent with early 21st century science would be difficult, and probably make for bad story-telling.

@Misery's long teleport example is a good one. Discworld works because it's neither too serious nor too unrealistic.

Gloomhaven / Frosthaven is one I keep meaning to pick up myself.

But it's so.... so.... freaking... BIG. I mean geez I already have quite a few large board games (particularly Dark Souls, Aeon's End, and Zombicide, each of which take up many large boxes of game + expansions, or there's Too Many Bones + expansions which fits in one huge box that I now cant lift which is just as dumb as it sounds, and plenty more along with all those). But Gloomhaven's box looks enormous just by itself. And from what I can see there's just so many freaking THINGS in it.

While I've got a lot of games, the only campaign games I've played through are the 2 Aeon's End Legacy ones, and I made this huge ridiculous mess in the process.

Still, they really do look very good.

 

[Hypnalis]

GH / FH are certainly big, but well worth it.

The scenario environments are made of 2-5 boards that link together (like huge jigsaw puzzle pieces) There are a lot of different boards - maybe 40 or so - they approx half-fill those huge boxes. And make them heavy.
You play as a unique character (each one has a distinct style and capabilities). 18 in each of GH and FH. My group has played between 25 and 30, but none of us has played all. I want to though - they're all different, and almost all I've played have been fun. I'll literally die of old age before I'm done with the characters we have

Each one has a mini, a small set of action cards, and a set of unique "buff" cards, so that takes space. But you only play with one (solo can play with more, but IMIO max practical would be three.

Something like 50 distinct monsters, including some bosses. Each has it's own action cards (a small amount of overlap, but not much.

We've played somewhere near 130 distinct scenarios IIRC. A lot anyway /lol. 2 campaigns done, doing the third (Frosthaven) now

Take a look on boardgamegeek and youtube to get an idea.

I'd guess everyone is playing Frosthaven now, so I think a "real gamer" like you should start there. A reminder though - it's a heavyweight, complex game. Lots of fun, but not something you should persuade non-gamer friend to "try out"

SO I suggest you check out Youtube. If it looks good, try it. The game is very well designed and implemented, so if you like that style of game play you'll this these games.

Ask me questions here of you like (you'll have plenty

BTW they're not cheap compared to smaller games, but they're actually good value for money. The way we see it we've paid something like USD 1 per hour of gameplay per person. And we've bought everything, all the cards are sleeved, lots of convenience extras, etc, so we've spent enough for me to live on for a couple of months

BTW - you could probably find a group to play with if you like being social. I'm not very social (but get on ok with other people when I'm with them) ... and I got caught up in an extra FH group (once a week) by accident

 

[Misery]

The scenario environments are made of 2-5 boards that link together (like huge jigsaw puzzle pieces)

Yeah this is the one issue I run into sometimes with some games, is size-on-table.

Like, right now, my gaming table looks like this:

That's the aftermath of playthrough #7 of the mini-campaign that comes with the latest Aeon's End release, and... yeah it's a bit of a mess. Granted it'll look a bit less messy once I actually set up the next boss, things in the middle there are a bit more messy than usual since I was browsing through the newest card pack after the last round, but still, it tends to look something like this much of the time. Particularly the stuff in the back, some of the things back there, I'm not sure what they are exactly.

I got the 2nd edition Zombicide box recently, havent played it yet, not quite sure how in the world I'm going to get it all on that table, the board tiles are enormous and it's usually a 3x3 group of the things. Dark Souls is also really hard to set up.

Really one of the only things I dont like about the hobby, is dealing with organizing or table space. Or worse, dealing with 10 bazillion cards and boxes that very clearly werent designed to hold the stupid things. Particularly with anything made by Fantasy Flight. They make some stellar products, and then put them in the worst boxes possible with no proper inserts. I swear they must have hired someone to specifically make storage as irritating as possible for their stuff.

Also I looked at the Frosthaven box... turns out it's available for a good price on Amazon right now... and seeing it in photos, holy heck that thing is HUGE. None of my individual boxes are near that size... I mean really I thought the TMB main box was gigantic, but it's not close to Frosthaven's box.

 

[Hypnalis]

We have organizer boxes for GH/FH. And one of the group is a very well organized person, and handles setup for us.

Actual complexity of playing two characters solo would be a little less than your photo, bit not by all that much
BTW the box is always more than half-full while we're playing, because each scenario only uses a subset of the components. It's certainly a big box though And we have three: two GH/FH size, one "normally large gaming box" for Crimson Scales Home | Crimson Scales

I think there's a tracking app, which would help a lot. I'm not sure if there's one or not now- we had one, but it stopped working with the GH changes.

 

[MROSS]

Back int he day, I used-to love doing 'CRYPTOGRAM' and 'JUMBLE' in the newspaper. In recentl year, I found that 'CRYPTOGRAM' and 'JUMBLE' were sill published in some newspapers.

 

[Cryptid]

↑↑ That looks a lot like my gaming table, except mine has many more books and far fewer cards.

 

[Cryptid]

I just finished a six-week project of consolidating Traveller articles by topic from all 77 issues of GDW's JTAS and Challenge magazines. Next step is editing, to be followed by publication as either a single massive PDF or as several smaller ones.

All for free.