F@#$ Slacktivism

DOMA is in the news lots.  And FB has gone nuts posting the pink equality sign and its many counter parts and parodies.

this is my favorite parody by the way

My beef with this is not with the showing of support to the LGBTMD community, but thinking it accomplishes...well anything.

See, this is slactivism.  Signing an online petition or liking something on Facebook has absolutely zero influence on policy makers.  But it makes you feel like you did something.  It's the same sort of enablement that I hate in Conspiracy Theorists.  See a conspiracy buff blames everything on hidden sinister forces, but won't get off the couch to help because "what can you do, its the CIA".  Slactivism participants also fail to get off the couch but act like they did something substantive.  Real change takes effort, not a mouse click.

More over, a Facebook like is a commodity.   Release a funny picture, or some point-counter point thoughts in a graphic and start sharing.  Once your FB page gets about 50k likes, it has a cash value.  Don't believe me?  here's a screen shot off searching for Facebook Likes

So yeah, I am pretty cynical about the motives of these pages circulating these graphics.

Now here's an excerpt from an e-friend on why he changed his profile picture.

I didn't change my profile picture because I thought it would make any difference to the Supreme Court. And since all of my FB friends are in support of marriage equality, it's not like my advocation is going to change any minds there.

Here's why I did it: because I have friends who are gay, and some of those are married, or want to one day be married, and I want *them* to know that I support their marriage. Whatever the Supreme Court decides: I believe in you, and your relationship, and the life-changing choice you made. Whether you were married in Canada or Massachusetts or Seattle, in a church or city hall or under the stars with only the moon as your witness -- your marriage is yours to define. Those far-away seniors won't change my mind any more than they will change Rush Limbaugh's.

Hear hear.    I'm just not going to put it on FB, because its Slactivism.

and its still coming down

F@#$ games I don't like one bit. Not one bit at all.

Top 5 least favorite games

So spurred on by my favorite games list, the other side of the mixed metaphor, games that I don't really like.  There are rules for these selections.  They have to be decently rated on BGG list.  Top 500 at least.  If they are ranked 6000th, well let's face it, no one really likes it.  They also have to have been released post Settlers of Cataan.  I can go on for pages about what a crappy game Car Wars is, but it's also 30-35 years old and the context really doesn't apply anymore.

First the dishonorable mentions.

Samurai ranked 89th

This actually barely made the mentions list.  The core mechanic is basically playing dots and boxes, which I don't like at all.  But it plays 3 quite well and quickly.  So I won't say I will never ever never play this again, but there's got to be pretty specific circumstances.  #1, there has to be only 3 people playing.  #2, I have to not want to play the other usual suspects we typically break out for 3 player.

Tobago ranked 252nd.

The game play is actually pretty cool, but the scoring has problems.  There's a lot of variance and something you invested 6 moves in can be worth a lot less than your opponent's 3 move play.

Stone Age ranked 36th

2nd player to move has one hell of an advantage, and since we have started informally tracking victories, Player 2 wins at least 3/4's of the time, and maybe as much as 9 out of 10 games. 

Credit where credit is due, Juan came up with an auction-based house rule on who gets to be player 2 that I am positive would balance the game.  But it's simply not a good enough game to play test this house rule to confirm that.

#5

Glenn Drovers Empire: Age of Discovery ranked 54th

This actually isn't an awful game.  I just don't want to play it again.  It takes 3 hours and the most successful strategies are way too similar to one another.  That's way too long for such narrow victory paths.  It did have some decent replay until I figured that part out.

#4

Fresco ranked 137th

The problem in this game is a convergence of scoring and turn order.  Cash turns into VPs at game end, but doesn't influence turn order during the game.  So you can hoard money (delayed VPS), and still get the advantages of being in last place during the game.

Now we can probably house rule some patches for this game, but like Stone Age it's not a good enough game to bother play testing and trouble- shooting fixes.  In fact, Fresco is a lot less fun than Stone Age.

#3

Thebes ranked 198th

A game I've only played once.  It does have a clever mechanic.  The primary thing you have to manage is time, you have 2 years worth of moves.  And whoever is furthest in the past goes, which means you can manipulate the game so you can take multiple turns in a row.

The problem is the scoring.  You invest a lot of your time into "digs" which in game turns means pulling tiles from a bag and hoping that some score.  There is way way way way way way way too much variance in what you pull.

#2

Genoa ranked 188th

I've also only played Genoa once, and that was enough.  It's got one neat mechanic.  The game board is a gridded map, and you roll two dice to see where this turn's move starts.  You get 5 moves from that spot to pick up various assets.

The problem is every asset is trade-able and every move requires negotiation.  This destroys pacing with endless contract talks and makes the game experience a lot like buying a used car.

#1

Smallworld ranked 69th

I haven't played Smallworld in over 2 years, and apparently am still carrying the scars.  This game has a lot of problems.  

A) the pacing is atrocious.  I'd probably only dislike this game and not despise it if played in 30-45 minutes and not 75-90.

B)  some of the badge-tribe combinations make unbalanced power combos.   So either that guy wins or the table unites to gang beat him down.   Either way, I don't find this fun.

C)  the core mechanic is calculating a provinces defense and adding 2, then sending the appropriate amount of soldiers.  The game is centered around counting.  Effing Lame.

F@#$ Top 5 lists.

Bill C. requested I give my top 10 favorite games.  This is actually quite quite hard for me, because (and this is strictly my perspective, insert your own Darren hates every game joke here) I find most games adequate(read greater than 50%), a not insignificant minority poor, and a few brilliant.

Honorable Mentions:

These are games I like a lot, that just don't quite make the cut for a favorite list.

Galaxy Trucker

I like this game a lot because for half the game, everyone is participating simultaneously.   Plus you might get to hear some funny running commentary from Mike.  Oh!  That's a good one!

Now the game has problems.  There is quite a steep learning curve.  An experienced player playing with n00bs is going to the zoo to shoot goats.  And a n00b at a table of veterans is the proverbial blood donor.   Similar skill levels really need to play one another.

Dominion

This is a really really good game that unfortunately had a great, intuitive implementation on BSW at a time when I wasn't playing board games every week.  So I OD'd on the BSW version.  I feel that I know all the secrets from the first 2 expansions and am reluctant to invest further time and money in playing the follow up expansions that are likely to radically change what was an awesome game.

Dixit

Dixit is quite fun but might be better categorized as a party game and not a hard core nerd game.

Ra


Ra is a solid game that is very well balanced, and has several ways to win.

The problem with Ra, is that it is a pure auction game.   Auctions are a perfectly reasonable mechanic, but when that's all the game is, it has pronounced limitations. 

I still really like this game, but the auction only mechanic places this in the play 2-3 times a year category.

Race for the Galaxy

We played RftG regularly for about 18 months so it has immense replay value.  We just hit the wall.  And the follow up expansions broke the game.

The list:

#5

Space Alert.

This game is amazingly innovative and with the right group loads and loads of fun.  Here's the thing:  Its cooperative and difficult.  What that means is one bad mood or one flaky player at the table and this game becomes stressful and not fun.  Still it makes the list because in our early plays when we were able to laugh at our mistakes, these were among the best gaming nights I have had in the last 2 years.

#4

No Thanks

Ok this is a filler card game.  Play a hand or two at the end of the night or while waiting for the other table to finish their game.  However, this is the best filler game I have played.  It remains in regular rotation after 2 years of weekly play and that is really an amazing feat.

#3

Notre Dame

There's nothing unique about this game.  It's a pretty generic worker placement game.  But all the parts come together quite well, and I have an appreciation for well crafted game design.

#2


Alhambra

A tile laying game that I like lots with any number of players.  There is legitimate criticism that as the amount of players increase the tactical options decrease because there are way too many moves in between your turns.  I personally don't mind the chaos and welcome the improvisation that the 5+ player game fosters.

#1

Brass

I have come full circle on Brass.  At first the web implementation was 500 times better than the board game implementation.  But board games are meant to be social, and waiting 6-10 hours between turns eventually turned me off to the online version.  That's not to say that the face to face version doesn't need tweaks, but that's not in game play.  The tweaks are needed in the materials.

Your currency is given in gold and silver coins. Gold is worth 5$ (maybe 10, doesn't matter) and silver is worth 1$.  Ok so far.  Except that it is quite easy to spend over $50 in a turn and have $150 banked.  How much you spend determines turn order, so its quite a big deal, and the pile of coins in the cash spent spots on the board is far from ideal.  If I were to play face to face again, I think I would insist on pencil and paper records of cash on hand and how much you spent per turn.

The other problem is end game.  There is a loan cut off, based on how many turns are left.  The cut off is the last turn that you refill you hand with new action cards.  So there are cards left when you start the turn and its quite easy to forget that this is your last turn to get quick cash.  NABD, if you think about that at the start of game.  Place two piles of cards.  One that announces the cut off, and then the final replacement cards.

F@#$ Robo Rally

Robo Rally

Plot:  you are a bored super computer idling the nights away at a automated factory.  for your own amusement you stage races against other super computers using the factory's robots.  The theme has decent implementation.  The boards are chaotic and dangerous like a factory...

Game Play:  There are 5 moves per turn, which you must plan out ahead of time.  You get 9 cards to do this with.  The cards moves are things like turn right, move forward 3 or back up.  Your robot has to negotiate obstacles to get to race goals, so planning your move correctly is the game.

Robots shoot at each other, and if you get damaged, you receive less cards to plan your move.  Lose too many cards, and your 5th move gets locked.

Game end conditions can change from game to game, but generally its something like whoever tags three goal markers first.

Review:  I do not like this game.  It was released in 1994, so its 20 years old.  20 years ago, it might have been okay, back when board game choices consisted of Risk, Advanced Civilization and Car Wars; it has not aged well.

The game has way too much luck involved for the time investment it takes to play.   BGG lists playing time as 120 minutes, and I find that incredibly optimistic for anything larger than a small play surface.

The skill of planning your turn isn't very hard to master, so really the game is who draws the best cards.  Now there are quite a few games that I like that can be described in this manner.  Most of them play in 45 minutes or less.

F@#$ Planet Money

Onto a Podcast review!

The skip to the end sentence:  I love this podcast, listen to it if you can.

I first found Planet Money while listening to This American Life.  The Planet Money staff did a stripped down explanation of the 2008 mortgage crisis, and it was clever, humorous and informative.  So I subscribed to the Pod Cast.

Stripped down is their modus operandi.  The PM staff has a knack of explaining complex issues into easy to follow language. 

This is not to say they come up with definitive conclusions, like ever.  Economics revolves around competing opinions and values.  Economics is inherently messy.  I contrast that with Freakonomics.  Freakonomics, while also asking interesting questions, is run by rock star economist Steven Levitt.  And while Levitt has novel/intriguing stories, Levitt rarely admits possibility of error.

PM is run by laymen reporters.  Reporters who routinely look for the divergent opinions. 

PM also has an endearing DIY attititude.  A couple years ago, they wanted to do a story on toxic assets.  Whats the best way to handle that?  Well to buy one of course.

So they did, named it Toxie and did a series of stories on what made Toxie toxic.  From the purchasing of it, the tracking down and attempted interviews with the distressed mortgage holders within it, and the byzantine way the money was paid out.  Long story short for toxie, besides people getting behind on their mortgages, there were about 90 levels of payment priority.  Toxie was in the bottom third, so as payments dried up, Toxie stopped paying out earlier.

From the remaining Toxie money, they bought some gold.  And did a series of stories on the crazy gold inflation of the past couple years.  Like how did gold become a currency anyways?

PM has also explored manufacturing by forming a company to make T-Shirts.  They also explored off shore corporations by forming one.  Located in Belize, they named it UnBelizable.

Anyways, the Podcast that inspired this post was #430, were they looked at V!agra spam.  The most surprising thing, is that these black market pharmacies actually sent the correct medications.  They did recommend NOT ordering from this, leaving aside the illegal to buy without a prescription issue.  You surrender information to sketchy companies, including your phone number.  And they relayed a testimonial from a person who quit ordering from these pharmacies and had to stop answering their phone due to the volume of harrasing sales calls.

F@#$ Bang!

Bang!

Plot:  Spaghetti Western.  Kill the Sheriff and the Deputies if you are the Outlaws, kill the Outlaws if you are the law, kill everyone if you are the Renegade.  The theme is fun, the cards reference Western movie cliches, and everything is written in Italian with English subtitles.

Gameplay: 

Only the sheriff is known.  Every other role you have to figure out via actions.  The mix is set depending on how many players, I played 7 player, and the role distribution is 1 sheriff, 2 deputies, 3 outlaws, and 1 renegade.





Besides your role, you also have a character.  The character provides some kind of exception, my first character allowed me to pick cards from the discard.  This was amazingly powerful.  My second character allowed me to draw immediately if I ran out of cards.  This was pretty meh.



A turn consists of drawing 2 cards, playing whatever you can, then discarding down to your current health.

Most cards are self explanatory.  Draw new cards.  Force someone to discard.  Steal a card from someone.
 
Shooting someone requires some explanation.

First, you need a Bang! card.  Without specific exception cards (gear or character) you can only play one Bang! card a turn.

Second, target needs to be in range.  Default range is 1, so that means your left and right hand neighbors only.  There are gear cards that increase your range.

After revealing a Bang! card, target gets a chance to reveal a Missed! card.  If no Missed! card is revealed, you do 1 damage, and get to raise your hands in the air as if there are no repercussions.

Review:  This game plays 7+ well, which is a pretty rare feat.  Also, the table I played at was pretty fun.  People were very likely to just start shooting, which speeds up the game.  With the wrong table this game may really really suck.  There's not much to the strategy except to make sure you draw good cards, so long analysis of who may be who can make a beer and pretzels game drag.  But as long as no one takes it very seriously, its nicely paced with just a hint of strategy and tactics.

Tips:  The only thing I have figured out really, is that if you are a deputy, it's worth your while to start shooting immediately.  In 7 player, you have a blind 80% chance of hitting someone opposing you.  Outlaws should be more cautious but the law should spray the lead.