Tabletop Games and Gamers?

[chavosaur]

Very recently, I went to an incredibly nerdy lake house get together, filled with monitors playing League of Legends, World of Warcraft raids, Monster Hunting, and for the first time that is ever seen, a STACK of board games.

Now I'm not talking typical candy land, or anything like Dungeons and Dragons.

I got to play a game of Cosmic Encounter (easily one of my favorites of the night) which is a strategic conquest type of board game, filled with making alliances, lying, scheming, and plotting to take over planets.
I played some interesting card games like Mafia Wars and Munchkins as well.

So now I'm really looking to expand my gaming and share some cool experiences with other Tabletop gamers. I'm actually about to purchase a game called King of Tokyo, a Kaiju based conquest board game.

Is anyone else here into Tabletop gaming, or played any really awesome board games in the past? Are you avid in collecting various board games?

Let me know, this is a world I really wanna get into!

 

[FAST6191]

I assume you have been to https://boardgamegeek.com/ as it is kind of the hub for these sorts of things, though the community has some odd ideas about things and it kind of ends up a bit like gamefaqs but with better spelling.

Anyway I don't mind board games, I quite like the extra maths/complexity and freedom to do things that most computer games can not even get close to. I doubt I would ever be able to pass for one of the people that has it as their main thing (though I also live close enough to Germany that it is not such a struggle to get things that come out of there*) but I know most of the big players outside things published by Hasbro. That said Hasbro occasionally do well for things -- I really do like the Lord of the Rings version of Risk.

*Germany is to a certain type of tabletop game what Japan was to computer games in the 1980's and 1990's, equally they have their own sort of thoughts on the matter so German board gaming is kind of like what if JRPG was a term that people seem to think it is. Though at the same time it is not limited to that region anywhere near as much as JRPG was/is.

As most people playing such games outside big cities would probably kill to go to such a house party as you describe it does make getting groups together somewhat harder. To that end I can also highly recommend the XBLA versions of (Settlers of) Catan and Carcassonne (the DS versions are also not bad but the XBLA versions are better, http://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-game-of-the-week-66.333121/ ). Most people seem to grow out of Settlers of Catan (the high level play really isn't) but it probably is still a game that you want to play on your way up, equally if you would rather not throw your prospective game partners in at the deep end then it shows quite well that things are more than monopoly.

Tigris and Euphrates would probably have to be the main game that I would judge other things by, though others would also tell me to include Agricola. Equally if you can get it you will be doing well but the board game based on Dune (as in the Frank Herbert books) is great.

Also if you ever have to play with strangers then please make sure you can shuffle cards, cut cards, deal cards and have dice you read if you are bringing your own. Not knowing the rules is one thing but not being able to do that is quite another. Some would also say know what various terms are (so if someone says rondel based then you know what it is) but that can come later.

"filled with making alliances, lying, scheming, and plotting to take over planets"
There are quite a few things like that (indeed alliances form the core of several games) and it is not my thing but if you like that then you might also want to look into some of the role playing games that are not Dungeons and Dragons or things that want to be Dungeons and Dragons (things like GURPS) or are based on that system (an awful lot of things as it kind of became an open system at one point). As it is not my thing I do not have many suggestions but if you can read through the manuals of Burning Wheel, the Game of Thrones role playing game and mouseguard RPG (though it is a burning wheel spinoff) then you can get an idea of things that go there. There are many more but those would be a good jumping off point, indeed I never play them but I quite liked reading the rule books for them.

 

[Hells Malice]

Tabletop gaming is still very much a thing. Especially thanks to Tabletop Simulator being goddamn awesome.

I don't exactly socialize irl, but I do enjoy boardgames when I have the chance to play them.