Help me find a good boardgame!

Cafe Society
1

OK, here’s the situation: we’ve got a group of guys who get together a few times a week to play boardgames of various types. Now, one of my co-workers sometimes joins in…so far, so good. This person, however, has a hard time with some of the games we play. He’s a bit slow; I don’t think he’s “officially” retarded, but he definitely has a hard time with games that require strategy or complex rules, and he tends to take it personally when he is blocked or attacked by another player during gameplay, even though that’s part of the point of the competitive gameplay. So I’m hoping to find a good contemporary boardgame that (a) is based mostly on luck (b) either allows cooperative play or doesn’t involve players attacking or impeding each other © is relatively simple to learn and (d) is similar in theme or style to our usual assortment of games, which includes:
Settlers of Catan
Heroscape
Carcassonne
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Zombies
Robo Rally
The person in question has nearly freaked out while playing each of these games at one point or another when he has been “stomped on” by the rest of the players (which means the equivalent of the Robber blocking him two consecutive times in Settlers, for example). This person also really likes playing the games, and I suspect a big reason for that is the social aspect, so I don’t want to deprive him of that…but he can’t keep freaking out during boardgames or no one else will want to play with him. He has also said to me (while playing Settlers of Catan) “I like this game, because luck plays a big part in it…not like chess, where it’s all strategy…I can’t stand that!”

Sorry if that seems muddled…but hopefully you get the point. Any suggestions?

2

This weekend I was tempted to pick up Monsters Menace America, but turned it down because reviews made it sound a little random and simplistic. But it sounds like it might suit your needs.

3

Mississippi Queen (Rio Grande Games approx. $30) is out of print but still available at various online outlets. The object of the game is to steam your paddleboat up the river, pick up 3 passengers, and be the first to deliver them safely to their destination. There are opportunities for players to screw with one another but they’re few and far between and I rarely see it happen.

Niagara (Rio Grande Games approx. $50) is very much in print and is a really fun game. Collect gems along the Niagara river but take care not to be spent over the falls. It’s a bit pricey because of the unique board that allows the river to be moved, the colorful “gems,” and the nice wooden canoes. There isn’t usually any direct screwing with other players except for the occasional theft of someone elses gem.

Wooly Bully (Asmodee approx. $20) is a tile laying game similiar to Carcassonne. The object of the game is to pen in as many of your sheep as possible to score points. Interestingly enough, the first person to declare that they are done gets bonus points. It’s a fun game though it’s possible to screw another player by placing wolves in the woods to eat his sheep.

Ticket to Ride (Days of Wonder approx. $40) is another game that everybody loves. You’re trying to build routes between cities in the US and parts of Canada. Sometimes another player will block routes you need but that’s typically because they need the route themselves and not because they’re trying to block someone. A fun game that just about everyone enjoys, if they have a soul that is. Ticket to Ride: Europe is also fun but perhaps not for your friend.

Star Wars Epic Duels (Milton Bradley approx. $40-100) is a pretty fun miniatures type game where you take control of Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, and other Star Wars individuals and make them fight. There’s a lot of luck involved because you draw cards for attacks, defense, and roll dice for movement. I think it’s a really fun game with light rules but I wouldn’t spend the outrageous money it goes for on eBay. If you can find a relatively inexpensive copy of the game though I’d get it.

Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit (Avalon Hill approx. $50) is another fantastic Star Wars game. It’s really a two player game but they say you can play with up to 4. There’s plenty of luck involved and your friend might enjoy it.

Munchkin (Steve Jackson Games approx. $25) gets a bit tedious and is based completely on luck with very little strategy. I don’t really play this game all that often these days but it’s not so bad once in a while. If nobody in the group ever played Role Playing Games then I’d avoid this one since most of the jokes revolve around RPGs.

Samurai (Rio Grande Games approx. $35) is just a fantastic game. Attempt to collect Rice, Helmets, and Buddha statues in order to attain victory. It’s got some luck factor as well as strategy but it isn’t difficult to grasps. I could see some problems if your friend has his heart set on collecting from a city or town only to have someone else arrive and take what he wanted.

Marc

4

Monsters Menace America is a great looking game and for the most part the game play is acceptable. The end game mechanic is terrible though and so disappointing that I ended up trading it for Mississippi Queen. I’d avoid MMA unless you could get it for 20 bucks.

Marc

5

Bruno Faidutti has a great resource for game reviews of all kinds. Doper recommended.
Another game Sequence is easy enough for my 7 year old to nearly grasp the concept of 5 in a row.

6

You may want to avoid Frag, since the whole point of the game is to kill your opponents. Of course, you regenerate immediately, so maybe your friend will like to get his revenge :wink:

Maybe he’d like Knightmare Chess, which throws a whole bunch of random elements into the original board game.

There’s a nice 2 to 4 player game called Quoridor that I like. Quick play, simple rules, and sometimes the best strategy is to block yourself before your opponent can block you.

And there’s a bunch of stuff at Cheapass games with fairly simple rules.

7

Clans might be a good choice for your situation. The interesting thing about it is that you don’t know what color the other players are until the game is over, so it could help with your coworker’s feelings that he’s been attacked or ganged up on. As an added bonus, the strategery is pretty obscure. IME, it takes several games before even sharp players have the first clue how to go about winning. So he could build confidence by winning a few games through dumb luck. :slight_smile:

And of course the finest cooperative board game ever made is Reiner Knizia’s Lord of the Rings. All the players are hobbits working together to destroy the ring. It’s very challenging and suspenseful. It can be bad when one player gets bossy and just tells everyone else what to do, though, so if you have a really domineering personality in the group, that’s something to watch out for.

You might also try Bohnanza. An important mechanic is trading with other players, and, while this might vary depending on the “personality” of your group, IME the trades are usually mutually satisfactory.

Good luck!

8

As a big board game junkie/afficianado, I would recommend the following (you can find specifics at www.boardgamegeek.com):

Shadows Over Camelot - a nicely themed game that is for the most part cooperative. The players work together to accumulate white swords for the round table (good deads) while limiting the number of black swords (bad deeds) they take in via various tasks: fighting the black knights, capturing the holy grail, beating back the Saxons and Goths, etc. Each player as a knight has one special ability to help them on the quest and there is a chance in each game that there will be one traitor who will win the game if the knights fail their mission. The game is absolutely gorgeous, steeped in theme, and while there is a chance that one person is out to ‘screw the team’, he is doing so equally to all other players and the traitor is unknown at the start of the game so nobody can claim to be ‘picked on’.

Goa - a heavy and beautiful game. It runs a little bit longer (probably 90 minutes normally, but up to 120 while learning), but involves enough solitaire play so that each player is responsible for their own fate. The game has enough auctions though that ensure there is a competitive drive to the game.

Return of the Heroes - the game has a decent mix of solitaire play combined with a race to defeat the ‘evil overlord’ so that you always feel the heat of competition without worry about being picked on by other players. The game is also very gorgeous to look at and keeps the fantasy theme going on very well. I would recommend that if you buy this, that you grab some better instructions off the Geek as the included ones are fairly lousy (they are told in a story format which meanders and makes it hard to find good specific information). As such, our first play was slow (2.5 hours), but I would imagine it being MUCH faster (90 minutes or so) on future playings.

I can ramble off a few other titles, but I think the above three would be very much up this guy’s alley, and they are all fantastic games to play in their own right (I own Camelot and Return of the Heroes).

9

Stay away from Munchkin. The WHOLE point of the game is to screw over the other guy.

10

Blackbeard - a board/cardgame mix from Avalon Hill. I believe it went out of print when Hasbro bought AH but you can still find the game for sale at some places. Here’s on one eBay starting at six bucks. Several historical pirates–and one non-historical for solo play–are printed on Pirate Cards, which are shuffled at the start of the game and each player takes one from somewhere in the deck.

The game is almost totally based on luck, there isn’t even a set order of play! Everything is done through drawing the next card in the stack of Action Cards: whose turn it is, where the merchant ships turn up, how much the haul is from each one (if the Pirate doesn’t lose the battle), random events, etc. There is an element of player-vs.-player combat through the use of pirate hunters but those rules can be overlooked.

The rules do look complicated at first glance but they’re easily sorted out after a few turns. Speaking of which, the random play order may turn people off, especially in large groups. It helps if the group is there more for conversation than taking turns. The abolute worst part of the game is setting up. About a half-dozen containers are needed for pulling out random bits of information, like the types of merchant ships and their nationalities.

11

Thanks for the replies so far…one of the guys already has Shadows Over Camelot but we’ve never played it…so that’s our choice for the next game night!

12

Can I just say hooray for Zombies!

I just picked up this game a couple of weeks ago, and played with hubby and a friend. We ran out of table space for floor tile cards, so we had to play on a smaller map, but I love this game! I especially love putting down half a dozen or so zombies around my nearest competitor and watching them try to battle their way out.

13

I’m with Sierra Indigo there. Zombies is tremendous fun, the cards along will make you chuckle. But perhaps not
one to try on your friend…
Favourite games atm are Puerto Rico (can’t see that being beaten for some time) and Power Grid.
Unfortunately both are presumably unsuitable too, so how about Doom? I loved it. Upto 3 players act co-operatively vs
the bad guy. Great looking pieces, nice board, nice scenarios with a sinister touch.
Or something simpler is the Mystery Rummy series…nice and cheap.
I hear that Ticket to Ride (as mentioned above) is rather good, and next on my hit list.
I’ll try and think of some others we’ve played…

14

That’s the truth, but since so much of it is based on luck I find that I don’t mind when I’m the one getting screwed over.

Another game to consider is Alhambra. It’s another tile laying game but you can’t really block anyone and there’s a large amount of luck involved.

Marc

15

Yup, we’ve played Ticket to Ride and Alhambra…liked 'em both. This guy is really into sci-fi and fantasy themes, so I’m guessing he’s really going to like Shadows Over Camelot.

16

I’ve got a game called Break the Safe (by Mattel). It’s a kid’s game but it’s enjoyable by adults. It has an unusual idea - the players are all playing together against the game. You’re supposed to be a team of spies who are breaking into enemy headquarters to steal secret plans. When you get inside you split up to look for the keys you’ll need while eluding guards and dogs.

17

Hey, you stole my OP!

In our weekly group, we have the same person. He doesn’t like games without pre-defined teams since you don’t know if the alliances are going to shift and if you’ll be betrayed (thus eliminating Diplomacy, Twilight Imperium, A Game of Thrones, et cetera), so we leaned towards Axis & Allies, War of the Ring, and so forth. But he doesn’t like games with dice, because according to him, they all come down to luck in the end and strategy has no role (ignoring the fact that good strategy minimizes the effect of bad die rolls), so we tried Puerto Rico, only to discover that to our surprise that the indirect competition was still too competive.

It sounds like the best game for him would involve everyone on the same team, a single pawn on a track of 100 spaces, and each person rolls the die and advances the pawn that many spaces. When you get to the end, you win!

Shadows over Camelot can be a good game if you play without the traitor. Otherwise, the gamer with the bad attitude will likely whine and sulk about how it’s impossible to win, and how the traitor is guaranteed to win, and how everyone is picking on him because they think he’s the traitor, et cetera.

You may want to look at Empire Builder or its variants. While there’s competition (the winner is whoever connects 6 cities and earns $250M dollars first) there’s no attacking other players. On the downside, there are no concurrent turns so he may lose interest and space out while waiting for his turn, and then the game falls apart.