The Syndicate

Gumshoe wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:49 am I'm sitting on a personal collection of almost 150 games here. This is my kind of thread/forum. I wonder if you guys feel my mafia + boardgaming pain of not being able to play mafia in person due to not having a large enough group.

Gumshoe wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 5:43 pm

speedchuck wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 4:49 pm

Gumshoe wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:49 am I'm sitting on a personal collection of almost 150 games here. This is my kind of thread/forum. I wonder if you guys feel my mafia + boardgaming pain of not being able to play mafia in person due to not having a large enough group.

Got any recommendations for a board game newbie?

What games have you enjoyed in the past and why? Which games have you not enjoyed and why? I'd have to know what you're into to give a good suggestion. My favorites might be game types that you hate. Or are you a complete newbie and don't know any games?

Gumshoe wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:42 am

speedchuck wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 5:46 pm

Gumshoe wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 5:43 pm

speedchuck wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 4:49 pm

Gumshoe wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:49 am I'm sitting on a personal collection of almost 150 games here. This is my kind of thread/forum. I wonder if you guys feel my mafia + boardgaming pain of not being able to play mafia in person due to not having a large enough group.

Got any recommendations for a board game newbie?

What games have you enjoyed in the past and why? Which games have you not enjoyed and why? I'd have to know what you're into to give a good suggestion. My favorites might be game types that you hate. Or are you a complete newbie and don't know any games?

Catan, Citadels, Ticket to Ride, One Night Werewolf, Plague Inc. (the board game), Bang! the dice game . . . thats about it

Ok, I'll just have to assume that you liked all of those games. I have no real knowledge of Plague so I'm ignoring that one in favour of the others. So none of your games are too heavy on the theme (although far from abstract). Longer than a filler but not about to eat through all of your play time.

Machi Koro, Takenoko, & Five Tribes are all fun games that you might compare to Catan in the sense that each player can devise their own technique for acquiring points and you can choose to step on each other's toes or do your own thing. Machi Koro is about building shops and such to form the nicest town, Takenoko is a battle over bamboo between a gardener & a hungry panda, & Five Tribes comes down to balancing your use of workers in order to best control a board that at it's core is the game Mancala (this game is an arabian theme featuring powerful djinns ).

If you love Citadels due to choosing when is the best time to use which character then you may like Libertalia or Beasty Bar. If you like it for the drafting mechanic you can go heavy with 7 Wonders or light with Sushi Go. I'm gonna go out on a limb though and kind of stretch out a bit here and maybe find something you haven't considered before. First, Mr. Jack - as long as you're okay with a Jack the Ripper theme then this game is a blast. It's a deduction game (like Bang & ONUW) but it also allows you to choose which characters to use and when (ala Citadels). One player is Mr. Jack. The other is a detective. The game features many characters that are eligible to be moved by either player but only Jack knows which character he is. His goal is to subtly move that character to the exit without being exposed and stopped by the detective. My other recommendation in that area would be Smash Up. Smash Up (along with it's 10 million expansions) features over 89.86 billion different ridiculous(ly awesome) factions (I counted ). Each player chooses two factions and smashes the decks of those factions together for that game. That makes your team. Your team may be Pirate Zombies, Rockstar Killer Plants, Grandma Princesses, etc. Then the players fight over bases. You choose which base to assign which cards to in order to break the bases that are in your favour. Buying the expansions for this game is addicting.

The only recommendation I can think to make off of Ticket to Ride, personally, would be Tsuro. This is a bit of a stretch but you could say Tsuro is like Ticket to Ride due to path building. Tsuro is much more simple. It's a game that you put in as much thought you want. You could just place tiles and you'll probably lose hilariously but could accidentally win. Equally hilarious. You could try your best and run others off the board or just get a bad draw and lose anyway. Luck based but fun. The theme is nearly abstract but you're meant to be dragons forging your path in hopes of staying on the board for as long as possible.

For deduction games like ONUW & Bang, you could always go with Ultimate Werewolf (Deluxe Edition) as that is basic werewolf/mafia and nothing can trump that in my opinion. For a new spin you could go with The Resistance (or Resistance: Avalon) or Secret Hitler if you like the idea of deciphering who the baddies are so that you can exclude them from missions and law-making. You could go with Spyfall or The Chameleon if you like the idea of a solo baddie attempting to suss out secret information being given via clues by the good guys as they try to figure out which player doesn't seem to have the same information that they do (aka the baddie who knows nothing). If you're willing to try a longer game with heavier theme (although still a simple game), you could try Dead of Winter (or Dead of Winter: Long Night). I would highly recommend this game. You control survivors of the zombie apocalypse that have formed a colony in order to help each other survive. You can gather food, build barricades, rummage through buildings (finding objects and fun, game status changing stories), etc. Why do I recommend this under deduction you ask? Because each player has a hidden goal and one player's hidden goal MAY be to cause everyone else to lose. Are you all working toward similar goals or is a traitor in the mix ready to let the zombies overwhelm your home?

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2017 1:20 am You could also try Munchkin, Avalon, Coup, Love Letter, Sheriff of Nottingham, Betrayal at House on the Hill,

Long Con wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 5:00 pm Come on guys, why didn't WE do this??