Bobby

Charades is fun. Pictionary is fun. Trivial Pursuit is fun. Cranium takes all these and more and blends them together into one big game. It’s nice because the variety keeps things fresh. Nobody complains because they “can’t draw” or “are no good at trivia” because they are only tiny pieces of the game. You can still be good at knowing music, acting like famous people, making things with clay, or word games and spelling. There’s something for everybody!

Once you’ve played the game too many times, I’d say 20 or so, the cards will be too repetitive. That’s why they make expansion cards sets!

GoT has a ton of rules and quirks that make it more than just another Magic clone. You have three different types of attacks per turn, and with some cards you’ll be hard pressed to choose which style will work best for any given situation, but it makes for a lot of strategizing. With several ways to win, different decks can have radically different tactics against each other.

The original Munchkin is still the best in the entire series. The humor is spot on and the puns come in a mile a minute. As much fun as it is it add in a ton of expansions, the game never plays better than it does the first time you open the box.

There is a lot of chance to the game, and if you have terrible luck it might not be much fun. But it usually averages out, and players can team up on anyone who is doing too good. If the game starts to drag on all it takes is a little teamwork to start everyone moving forward and get back into a big panic trying to stop someone from winning.

This is really a game where your mileage may vary. If you have a group of people with a good sense of humor, social skills, and at least a modicum of fairness, it’s a night of fun and laughs. You should NEVER be playing this to win, judging based on who you think gave you certain cards. It’s just to have a good time.

4ed brought some pretty big changes to the DnD format. Combat with miniatures on a battle grid using power cards is a fun way to play, but it doesn’t really have to change the game as much as some people think. Outside of battle, you can play just like you always have, with the DM weaving rich stories full of suspense and intrigue as the players try to move forward in an ever evolving plot. Just because the new rules focus more on combat doesn’t mean your game has to.

Even when I am DMing a game, I find I turn to the Player’s Handbook for rules far more often than I use the DM guide. It’s a great tool for beginners to learn how to be a DM, but for anyone that has been into roleplaying for years it doesn’t bring a whole lot new to the table.

That said, it does help teach how to run the tactical mini combat, which is the major new mechanic of 4ed. But again, if you are someone that has played a lot of mini combat games, it’s not as necessary.

The 4ed Monster Manual makes it so much easier to run a game. you don’t have to work to create and balance your own enemies, and even if you do, it gives you a good selection of examples and templates to make the job go faster.

There are the occasional hiccups, some creatures aren’t perfectly balanced, but I think that’s ok. As a GM you can tweak them to make them fit however you want.

I got into Magic back in the 4th edition, just before it exploded with all the themed expansions. It was a great game then and it’s still a great game now, although I would argue that all the new rules and variants have hampered the overall playability of the game. I can still take decks I built 10 years ago to gaming conventions and have tons of fun playing against dozens of other people who brought their cards, there aren’t many CCGs you can say that about.

Dominion is one of those great games that only takes about 15 minutes to learn the rules, but every game you learn something new about the strategy. The ability to choose which decks to play with makes it so you have an almost endless variety of different game setups (although some work better than others). A strategy that dominates with one set of cards may fall flat on its face in another, and even changing out a single deck can radically alter a strategy.

4ed doesn’t have to lose the roleplaying feel of olderversions of DnD, you just have to game outside of the books a little more. What it brings to the table is a really detailed game of miniature combat designed to be played on a grid. It throws in rules for progressing in levels and adventuring outside of the combat area, but you need a good DM to keep the story going.

I know a lot of people like to stick with the older editions, and that’s ok too. This one is for people that want to roleplay AND have mini combat, which I enjoy.

The idea of having all your pieces on the board go into decline and phase out over the course of the game is a really neat twist that adds to the gameplay. It feels like your races never really have enough time on the board though, as you often phase them out within a turn or two of placing them.

Betrayal is always one of the top games my friends want to break out. It’s very social, has fun exploration, and the plot twists keep things fresh. It tries to do a whole lot and it pulls off almost everything really well. There are times when the rules leave things open to interpretation, and it almost requires you buy a little organizer for the components. The best way to learn to play is to jump in with others who know the game, which makes it hard for a completely new group, but after 2 or 3 games the rules are familiar (except for the 50different haunts) and the gameplay speeds up considerably.

It’s an easy game to teach to new players and has enough ‘luck of the draw’ to give them a chance to win their first time. It has strategy in choosing which routes to keep and pursue and how best to block your opponents. Every game is a little different and a wealth of expansions gives room to grow.