What games do I buy?

[Mike]

I find myself suddenly flush with cash, and I need to buy a bunch of games. What does everyone recommend?

Board games, card games... maybe even RPGs (maybe)... what's good?

[FlameBlade]

Type of board games you like?

May I recommend Godball?

Terraforming Mars, if you like building things and decisions to optimize your points.

Everdell, if you like worker placement and "deck building" with sone resource management.

Clank, if you like thieves in dungeon trying to grab as many things as possible before dragon wakes up and incinerate entire dungeon. It's somewhat of deck building as well.

Azul, if you're somewhat of math nerd and love latin squares. It's a simple and gorgeous game.

Horrified, 2 monsters (or more) goes on rampage, and you try to stop the monsters. Can get intense because village idiots would try to make their way home, and they get killed easily.

Long game, hard to get: Brass: Birmingham is a delightful economic game where you grow businesses. I prefer it over Lancastershire version.

Possible gateways games:

Splendor
Dinosaur Tea Party
Reef
Tsuro
Carcassonne


Large group game:

Deception
Throw Throw burrito (just don't have cups nearby)

[Mike]

Thank you! My brother's family digs Throw Throw Burrito, and I've always been drawn to Azul, but I never would have remembered it. I'm writing all of these down.

[Mike]

Okay, I just remembered Codenames.

Then... what's game where each player controls a different direction of movement?

[FlameBlade]

There's a whole new genre of gaming...if you like Escape Rooms...

There's "Exit" series and "Unlocked" series. Exit has puzzles that you have to damage stuff to solve, but unlocked, you can pass it on to your friends.

Afraid I don't know about changing directions...sounds like Godball or Fluxx.

[FlameBlade]

Extremely expensive, but if you like your minis and scenario-based adventures. Mansion of Madness. Best if you use app that can be flashed to TV, so app can be your dungeon master of some sort. Great for Halloween. Terrible for storage

[Kyle]

Throw throw burrito is fun, but very chaotic and violent.

The game where you control directions is Magic Maze.

The two single best escape room board games are made by ThinkFun (Stargazer Manor and Secret of the Observatory). I did not like the Escape Room: the Game games- they were set up to rely on hints, which I hate.

Clank is the best new board game I’ve played in five years.

A cool game we got at the game convention is Dragon and Flagon. It’s hard to describe, so go look at it- but you have to “program” your fantasy bar brawlers moves in advance with one of the most unique time mechanics that I’ve seen.

[akiva]

Ivanhoe. Superb game, well balanced, and fun.

[Mike]

[akiva]

[El Jefe]

Stars Without Numbers, Revised Edition. It's the game that Starfinder tried so hard to be, and very much wasn't. It tosses aside a lot of the modern emphasis on crunch to use OSR D&D in some incredibly brilliant ways. This isn't a joke, this isn't hyperbole for a change. This is the best assembled game I've seen in the majority of my gaming life. And most importantly? It's the most helpful game to a GM I've ever encountered. I've never messed about with sandbox RPGs prior to this, focusing on metaplot heavy games. I had absolutely no clue what I was missing. The digital fan tools for it are amazing, letting you create entire sectors with ease in 10 minutes or less, only to come back and add details as needed.

Additionally, you're supporting primarily a singular person with a singular focus and viewpoint. Kevin Crawford does the overwhelming majority of all the work on Sine Nomine projects, save artwork. (And if you listen to his glorious interview with Adam Koebel, you'll also found out that he's got an amazing professor voice.)

This is a setting that does ship travel and combat justice. It keeps classes interesting and without crunch overcomplexity. It uses really old D&D game theory in new and unique ways. It gives enough of a metaplot backdrop to just give you a start, and create something much more interesting with a set of rules that are not negatively impacted by the existence of that metaplot. I've never been as impressed and excited by a game system as this one, at least not that I can remember. You can get the expanded edition of core rules for like $20 on DTRPG, the basic version for free (get the expanded, it will literally let you cover everything from Star Trek to Star Wars to postscarcity Transhumanity settings to Dune to 40K and just about everything in between). You can get the space magic book (Codex of the Black Sun) and a few other odds and ends for maybe another $20 or $30 and never need anything else again.

You won't be disappointed. And if you are, then you're a soulless monster that stole the flesh of Mike Jones.

Also, Starfinder is actually kind of not good. (That's El Jefe speak for it's pretty terrible.)

Edit: Seriously, I want to make this clear. I've spent the last several years making fun of much of the OSR market and crowd. Until I ran into this and realized I had no fucking clue what I was talking about. Used well, it's an utterly brilliant choice to pull from Traveler 1st edition and Moore D&D. You've known me long enough to know how much I've bashed the shit out of earlier D&D editions. This game is that damn good.

[Kyle]

Starfinder is great, Jeff just has a boy crush on another creator with professor voice. Both games can be great.

[El Jefe]

As much as I love (hate) THE JONES' jokes (horrible lies), sorry, but no. Starfinder has some deeply rooted flaws and plays as a pretty terrible game over the long haul. It's actually worse after level 5 than Pathfinder and 3.x. That's a big problem, because mid to high level play in those systems is already incredibly problematic.

I get that opinions will vary, and while I've never hid that I've got a pretty undying hatred for the 3.x game systems, Starfinder is one of Paizo's few missteps. It's filled with a notable amount of awful game design decisions, compounding existing Pathfinder problems instead of fixing them. The ship combat is an utter mess. The classes have serious balance issues, far more than you'd find in Pathfinder. They also badly screwed up the implementation of androids and SROs. One positive? They did manage to do much better with newer alien races. That gets overshadowed by taking the existing 3.x gear treadmill and deciding the best option is to turn it up to not 11, but 111. Now you need to both chase the next +X item *AND* the next tier of weapon damage, just to be able to do the thing you did easily before. And weirdly (because this isn't usually a Paizo thing), the worldbuilding is pretty bad. If Starfinder works for you, great. Just know that you're siding with THE JONES, playing a really bad game, and missing out on a much better product.

(No seriously, do Starfinder. There's no One True Way here. Just get SWN as well.)

Because it's so much better. And if you're doing Starfinder, you're doing BADWRONGFUN.

(You're really not. But SWN is still better. Because...well, it's THE JONES. I don't really need to say anything more.)

(Also, Starfinder doesn't have the utterly fucking fantastic faction system, which you should be stealing for every other game forever more as a GM, because it's goddamn brilliant and amazing. It also doesn't have the sector creation system. Plus, bonus! SWN remembered that having rules for micro-gravity movement might actually be kind of important in a space game! Oh, and that maybe radiation and crew damage in ship combat might be kind of a thing users of your space game might want.)

Okay, no seriously. Do the Starfinder thing, if it's working for you. I couldn't make it work, so more power if you can. But at least pick up Stars and take the faction system for a spin. It's highly useful in just about every game. Plus, the non-Vancian psychics are so, so much nicer than the casters in Starfinder. Oh, I almost forgot. d20 for attacks and 2d6 for skills is just about the greatest fucking thing ever. Totally, stupidly simple change, and it completely alters the way the characters work for the better.

[Mike]

SWN? Googling "SWN game" turns up Stars Without Number, a sandbox RPG. Am I close?

[Mike]

Huh. Searching Amazon turns up a copy of the first edition for $1200. A bit steep. And the revised edition says "unavailable". But under suggested alternatives, it thinks I should try Starfinder. Do you think that would work instead?

[El Jefe]

Also, I forget that you're a "gotta have an actual book" person. So, it'll be less cost effective for you. PDF only forever.

[Mike]

No. I don't gotta have a book, but if I am using their product and CAN get a book, I want to give them my money.

I saw the PDF. And I find the sector generator concept interesting, but you were pretty insulting, so I decided to fuck with you.

[El Jefe]

I was, and unfairly so (in most respects). Except for the weapon damage system. That was just a terrible design decision. And Starfinder's a great product, if you're somebody who can deal with 3.x systems. I just really can't deal with them. Considering the history of you and THE JONES, you clearly can. I'm just excited as hell for this game on a level I don't think I have been about a game in...forever? And have been meaning to do a topic on it for a while and kept forgetting. So I think I'll remember to go do that today instead.

[akiva]

I’m pretty sure you can order a physical copy of SWN from drivethrurpg.

[Mike]

Probably.