Tabletop & Board Games

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zaratustra
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby zaratustra » Sat Aug 02, 2014 9:56 pm

More likely, whoever replaces Kirby will start shopping the company around to potential buyers. And if anyone does buy GW, -they- will turn the company's targets around real quick.

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Büge
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Büge » Sat Aug 02, 2014 10:37 pm

I wonder who the oddsmakers in Vegas would say is the most likely buyer. Hasbro, maybe. Or Electronic Arts. Heck, why not Disney?
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Mongrel
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Mongrel » Sat Aug 02, 2014 10:41 pm

The problems that might result in explosive decompression are:

1) Kirby wasn't as much of the problem as the chairman/ownership is. Hell Kirby only took over a year or two ago, which is in itself a telling detail.
2) Kirby's replacement may well be cut from the same cloth, but be even worse at their job - they may not even KNOW to try and shop the place around
3) GW's shareholders have all been selling off their stock. There's no one there to force change as the largest groups have less than 10% and most of them are very hands-off small-to-mid-sized investment firms.

So while a buyout to force a turnaround (like WotC buying TSR) isn't impossible, it may well come after a crash and not on the way to it.

Büge wrote:I wonder who the oddsmakers in Vegas would say is the most likely buyer. Hasbro, maybe. Or Electronic Arts. Heck, why not Disney?

They're all possible, I guess, but I don't know if any of them would. Wargames are a very different animal and I think it would be very easy for someone without deep industry knowledge to run it even further into the ground.

It's possible that Warlord Games might try something (I think Privateer Press is bigger, but their products are more in direct competition to GW's offerings than Warlord's, so it's a much better fit for Warlord.
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zaratustra
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby zaratustra » Mon Aug 04, 2014 6:25 am

I'd go with someone trying to muscle into the Skylanders RFID-miniature market. In fact, GW should have gone that way already.

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Büge
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Büge » Mon Aug 04, 2014 8:41 am

True, but the company is quite obstinate about having the manufacturing done in Great Britain for some reason. If they went into mass-production of prepainted, preassembled plastic miniatures, they'd probably need to outsource to China.
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Mongrel » Mon Aug 04, 2014 10:31 am

Mass-manufactured prepaints will never really be that great. The next great leap in prepaints will be full-colour 3d-printed figures, but that will take a while because that's significantly more expensive than just getting to the point where plain-jane regular 3d printing is cheap.

In any case, prepaints ignores how much wargaming is a craft hobby as well as a game. A majority of the current wargame market prefers to build and paint their own. That said, high-quality prepaints may expand the market (Mage Knight had a and Heroscape had little bit of an effect like that).
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Blossom
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Blossom » Mon Aug 04, 2014 2:52 pm

RFID tags to prevent counterfeiting is a good idea, and something I feel like GW would be wise to pursue. Sell bases with the tags in them, maybe halfway-programmable to identify the specific model, and then sell models for 3d printers to print out, that might be the shot in the arm it needs. There's opportunity to get all DRMy with it, if they choose, or not if they don't. Model for a flat gray figure ready to paint for $X, model for that same figure in "pre-painted" colored plastic for $2X, sort of thing.
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Z%rø
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Z%rø » Sun Aug 10, 2014 1:57 pm

Picked up 5e on release day friday and played a game with my friends on the same day.

For D&D veterans, I can sum it up like this (I didn't do the playtesting, this was all a surprise)

-Fortitude/Reflex/Will saves have been replaced with saves that are just based on attributes
-BAB, Skill Point Distribution, Good Saving Throw Rolls, have been replaced with Proficiency
-Proficiency is a scaling number based on level for every class. At level 1 it's +2. At level 20 it's +6. If you are proficient in something (Save, Skill, Weapon, Spell) you get a bonus on the primary roll equal to your proficiency. (An attack with a weapon you are proficient in is 1d20+prof+mod+weapon enchant) (Ps. Rogues get a class feature that allows them to tag two skills that get double prof bonuses.)
-Feats are an entirely optional mechanic. You give up an attribute increase in order to take a feat instead. So they are all pretty calculated to be good. Some feats include a lesser stat increase still.
-Nearly all Races have sub races that simply add more to the class. An Elf (Darkvision, Dex+2) can be a Drow, and the drow has improved dark vision and an additional +1 cha.
-Nearly all classes have sub-class features. a barbarian can go the path of the berserker or totem warrior. A monk can go Open Palm, Way of Shadow or Way of Four Elements. A lot of these sub-classes have elements from really good PrCs we've seen over the years. (A lot of PrC features have been rolled into the base class, as well.)
-Combat is now [ACTION]/MOVE. There are no full round actions. There are two other types of actions: Bonus, which only applies if you can do something as a bonus. (Extra monk attack). And Reaction, which is something you can do out of your turn. You only get one of each.
-Starting Package is now half your class (With some A or B choices) and your background (Gives you a class feature, like entertainers can get free room and board in cities, as well as more equipment, and determining ideals, bond, and flaw.)

After a quick session of a simple quest, I have to say it's a pretty solid. The combat is fast, classes have options, there's roleplaying depth built into characters. I need to play more, but I like what I'm seeing so far.
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Z%rø
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Z%rø » Wed Aug 13, 2014 2:45 pm

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Blossom
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Blossom » Wed Aug 13, 2014 5:14 pm

I do like that there are patch notes for it.

No, seriously. That's genuinely a good thing to have when you've got something online being regularly updated.
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Lottel
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Lottel » Sun Aug 17, 2014 4:30 pm

From the 5e PHB coming out in a few days.

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TedBelmont
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby TedBelmont » Sun Aug 17, 2014 6:25 pm

Jeez, now even D&D is oppressing me!

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Blossom
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Blossom » Sun Aug 17, 2014 6:27 pm

If you ask the right people, that art is an affront to the name of D&D and an insult to the hobby.

Two of those people are credited in the book.
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Mongrel
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Mongrel » Sun Aug 17, 2014 6:57 pm

That warrior art is actually way sweet. Fuck yeah.
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Büge
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Büge » Sun Aug 17, 2014 7:16 pm

Huh. I was wondering why it seemed like a big enough deal to post pics, but now that I think about it, that is pretty progressive for WotC.
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Joxam
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Joxam » Sun Aug 17, 2014 7:20 pm

Andre 3000 is the best warrior, IMO
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Classic
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Classic » Sun Aug 17, 2014 8:34 pm

Maybe this is misogyny happening, but I hella dig light armor lady wizard/cleric of god of knowledge du jour.

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Z%rø
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Z%rø » Tue Aug 19, 2014 6:35 pm

5e PHB has been out at your local friendly gaming store for two weeks. They have it delayed on Amazon so you actually support your nearby store
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Newbie » Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:29 am

Shut Up & Sit Down reviewed Dead of Winter, a semi-collaborative board game. I have been obsessed with getting my hands on a copy since watching this. Now, a caveat: I don't play many modern board games, because of my heavy preexisting investment in the infrastructure to support an electronic gaming habit, so it's possible Dead of Winter doesn't do anything that other games do better, and I'd be completely oblivious. Still, it seems well-regarded, so I was very excited when I received a belated copy for my birthday.

We finally got a chance to play two games today, and it was pretty good! Julie had been very hesitant due to the bleak atmosphere, rule complexity & zombie content (she fuckin' hates their cultural ubiquity), but the games were sufficiently fun and straightforward enough that she was eager to recommend the game for the next time we get together with friends. The only disappointment was that between the two games, our four players achieved 0 out of a potential 8 victories.

In our first game, I misunderstood the mechanics of starvation: I thought the fact that we had two more survivors than we had food tokens meant we'd be getting two starvation cans at a minimum, depleting our morale to 0, when in fact we'd have lost a maximum of 1 morale for first starvation can and allowing us to win the game when the victory condition was checked... so rather than let that happen, I had my survivors flee the colony, and triggered a zombie feeding frenzy at the hospital, which lost us the morale and the game anyway. If I hadn't panicked and had read the instructions closer, Carl and I would have both won.

In our second game, our mission was to collect food and weapons before abandoning the colony for good, so we had a huge mass of zombies to wade through from the very beginning. Several people must have had secret objectives related to getting the most survivors in their group, because our population spiraled rapidly out of control, and nobody was willing or able to contribute to crisis resolution, and our morale took a plunge. We reached a point where we were one death away from a morale loss & my fireman had two frostbite wounds, so the colony would lose the game as soon as my turn arrived—so they had to exile me, despite the fact that I'd been one of the only people working on the crises. Alas, my new goal required my group to be the largest as well, and since my fireman immediately died, I was no better positioned to win than the doomed colonists. Game losses all around.

Still: fun game! I recommend it.
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Mothra
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Mothra » Fri May 01, 2015 2:52 pm

So, my younger brother asked for Arkham Horror last year, for Christmas, and I picked it up for him. We haven't played it yet. Not until now.

I got a group together for this Saturday, including my brother and his girlfriend, and we're gonna take a stab at it. I've been watching some tutorials online in preparation, and sweet jimminy christ is this thing complicated. We're also gonna be taking jello shots, so, oof.

Anyone have any advice before this nightmare gets started? I'm expecting it to run about 4-6 hours, with 5 players.

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