Games and more games

One of the hobbies that I love to spend time doing is playing games. I love most types of games, from video games on a computer or console, to tabletop gaming, role-playing, and card-type games. Because my wife and friends are also into games, this has led to a large uptick in time spent playing recently. So I thought I’d take a few moments and jot down some thoughts on some of my favorite games right now.

Role playing games

These are, of course, the big dogs in the field, with a long history going back to Dungeons and Dragons. As a kid, I only briefly played D&D, and ended up giving into the hype about occultism and gave the game up. I did however play a lot of other RPGs such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Robotech. Both games based off of the Palladium system.

Recently a good friend of mine and I started playing the Star Wars RPG, Edge of the Empire. It’s a Fantasy Flight game, set in the Star Wars world, specifically focusing on the outer rim territories and life outside of the plush existence of imperial citizens. It’s a fun system, however the need for unique dice is both a hindrance and a detriment. There is a great deal of interpretation as to what the dice rolls mean, which can be great for a creative GM, however it also means that there is often a small bit of ambiguity after every roll. Yes, you may have hit your target, but did you drop your gun in the process because you also rolled some other consequences? Overall though, we’ve had a good time with it, and I’ve even written a small adventure that we played through with a moderate degree of success.

Coming full circle however, the newest release of D&D, 5e just got released, and there’s a part of me that wants to pick it back up again and see if it’s reclaimed its glory days. I’m over my childhood fears of being overrun by evil, so I think this might have to be a purchase sometime soon. At least now they’ve put the basic rules online for all to see, and the starter set has everything you need to get going for only $20. That’s cheap enough to try it out and get deep enough into it to know if it’ll be worth keeping around and investing in the larger books.

Tabletop games

No discussion of games can go far without talking about the amazing number of tabletop games that are out there. My wife and I have spent a lot of time down at Fantasy Flight Game Center trying out various games, and I’ve come up with a few favorites. We both love some of the simplistic farm/city type games like Alhambra, and we’re starting to really enjoy SmallWorld. Agricola is another one that we’ve tried once, and after figuring it out, we really started to enjoy ourselves. We’ve also experimented with some big-box games like Arkham Horror, but these games often that take a long time to play, so we have to be careful when we decide to grab those off the shelf.

One of our personal favorites to play with family and friends is Lords of Las Vegas. This is an amazing game that combines aspects of Monopoly with Settlers of Catan, all with Las Vegas style. One of the most intense gaming sessions I’ve had in recent memory was at a gathering of my wife’s family. The epic-ness of the casino’s that were being fought over, brought on literal shouts of joy, as well as genuine pangs of anguish when that one, wrong, card turned over and changed the entire landscape. Leaving a clear winner a mystery until the end is the mark of a great game.

I can’t forget to leave out miniature games from tabletop games, though perhaps they even deserve their own category. Two of my favorite ones right now are Zombicide, which creates a real sense of dread as you duck in and out of decaying buildings, trying desperately to take out that walker-style zombie without making too much noise. But the one miniature game that has been getting a majority of my attention is X-Wing miniatures. My buddy got me into this, and I’m totally hooked. The collector inside me wants to keep building my armada of ships, but even with a limited squad you can have a great deal of fun. The game play is highly tactile and visual, and by the end of a session your brain can be quite tired. We’ve had some epic battles and can’t wait to see some of the new models coming out later this year.

Card games

I was a fan of Magic: The Gathering, back shortly after it debuted. I even owned some of the original printings of the first expansion set. As I decided I was a family man, and a grown up, I stupidly sold most of my cards many years ago, but I still love a good competitive card game. Thankfully, I’ve found a couple to play with my youngest son, such as the (now defunct) Warcraft Card Game, as well as the typical Pokemon. I haven’t yet delved back into M:tG, but that’s mainly because I don’t have any friends to play against.

However, when my wife and I visit the game center, we’ve started playing some of Fantasy Flight’s Living Card Games. These are different from the typical CCG (Collectible Card Games) for a couple different reasons. First, they do not come out with random booster packs the way that CCGs do. They publish decks of cards that are a fixed number, and variety, of cards that are all identical from pack to pack. So you can continue to build your decks with new cards, but there is no more of the random treasure hunting, hoping for that one special card, buying dozens of booster packs to try and get it.

The other really unique aspect of FF’s LCGs are that they depart from the typical death match style of play. In M:tG you and your opponent each have a deck, and the object is to kill the other player first. In LCG’s the objectives are totally different, and it makes for some really unique play. In the Call of Cthulu Card Game you’re each playing a deck that is trying to capture a set number of story-cards to be the winner. In the Android: Netrunner game the hacker player is on offense while the corporation being hacked into is on defense, making for completely different play style on both sides of the table. The Lord of the Rings game focuses on cooperative play to achieve and objective, and can even be modified for more than two players. This unique type of game play makes the catalog of LCGs (there are more than the 3 I’ve mentioned here) a lot more compelling and fun to play casually than the traditional CCG.

Before ending the card game section though, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention deck-building games like Dominion and the favorite of my wife and I, the DC Comics card game. These games provide a unique way to play, that can be incredibly fast paced and can leave your opponent in the dark as to who is really winning, until the very end.

So that’s a quick overview of a few of the games I’ve been playing lately. It’s been great to have this hobby in my life again, and I love being able to share it with the people in my life that I love.