Liz posted her five RPGs that changed how she looks at gaming, and I was planning to write a post about one of my total favourite games in the world, Smallworld. Instead of that, I’m going to post about my five board games that changed the way I looked at gaming. I haven’t played as many RPGs as Liz, but I have played a lot of board games! Plus my five games are better.
Clik here to view.
Four of my favourite board games. (I don't own the fifth one)
So here are my five favourite board games and how they changed the way I think about sitting down to play a game.
1. ZOMBIES!!!
I had been on a major Left 4 Dead kick when I first encountered ZOMBIES!!! at board game night. It is the first time I’d played a game where you built the board. In ZOMBIES!!! you create a city, through which your rifle guys must run and shoot zombies. You use cards to place ore zombies and get benefits. The goal is to reach victory at the Helipad (Or getting 25 zombie kills). ZOMBIES!!! is the board game that taught me it’s okay to antagonize other players. While I’m still very much a pacifist in games, in this game it’s a reality that you’ve gotta hose someone if you’re going to win.
2.Smallworld
This is the silliest game of world domination. Smallworld taught me that limits can be the thing a game needs. Smallworld could have some really weird win conditions if it weren’t for the turn-based time limit (amount of gold? other races destroyed? areas conquered?). The fact is, I almost always know how long a game of Smallworld will take, and the turn limit means it can be really, really fun to lose at Smallworld. Smallworld is also great at offering variety and unpredictability with shuffled races and traits.
3. Dominion
I’d always been a casual Magic: The Gathering fan, but I wasn’t terribly into deck building. I found it too high pressure. Dominion makes deck building nonthreatening, and it’s a really casual approach to practicing strategy. Thinking up different dominion builds made me view elements in other games in the same way: as parts of a whole that may or may not combine, and how they work in those different ways.
4. Blokus
Blokus was one of the first non-standard (Mattel, Hasbro) board games I owned. Blokus taught me that a board game doesn’t have to be a ridiculously long sitting-down affair where everyone has to take a masters program in the rules to feel competent. Blokus: you want to put down all your blocks. You can only connect your blocks by touching the corners. Unfortuantely this game really isn’t fun without four players.
5. Galaxy Trucker
I don’t own Galaxy Trucker, because it costs around $75 and it is impossible. I play this game at a friend’s place, because he shelled out for it. The rules are a translation into english, and I find them rather inscrutable every time I play. There is a ship building phase that is timed and so prone to player error that new players often completely freeze and end up with a tiny vessel… or go big but lose half of their ship immediately (this is me every time. My ship always blows up). You can die in the first round and there is no resurrection until the second (and third) phase begins.
Clik here to view.
Limping home. This is my winning ship. See all the tiles up top? They are from the ship. Meteors, man.
It’s so much fun because you’re all stuck in the same situation. Knowing the rules won’t help you win, here. It is straight up impossible. And that makes it totally hilarious. Galaxy Truckers is all about making the best of a shit situation.Much of the fun in this game comes from failing; that moment when one tiny space rock tears half your ship into the vacuum of space.
These five board games taught me about flexibility, making the most of a situation, resourcefulness and that often, feiling creatively is far more fun than a tactical victory. In many of these games, even if you have no chance of winning, you can lose in a way that will stymie your opponents and still keep the game fun. My hallmark of a great boardgame is that you’re still having fun when you’re in last place with no hope of victory, and that philosophy has definitely bled into how I feel about RPGs as well.
Clik here to view.
