How To Play Meadow?

In Meadow you are playing down tokens to pick specific cards. These cards have symbols that they need to be played, and a symbol that they give you. So you build up from habitats to small creatures or plants, then cover those with the creatures that eat them or use them for shelter and build up upon that. Eventually trying to get landscapes and items to remember the location by.

Each card is going to give you points, minus the terrain cards, and you are trying to get the most points possible. The player with the most points wins the game.

Initial Impressions

Now, that is a very simple overview of the game. There is more going on, mainly the campfire and how you select what specific card you take. Both I want to call out here because they are interesting to talk about as well. And both of them I actually enjoy in the game. There is one part of the game that makes it harder for me to get to a full review though. We’ll get to that soon.

Action Tiles

The action tiles are really interesting in how they are used. I call them tiles, it could be arrows as well, or parts of a picket fence, depends on how you want to talk about them. It uses a mechanic that I enjoy in Quadropolis where it gives you a distance, 1 through 4, can where you place your tile, you count that many in. That card is the one that you are taking.

Now, other players can block where you want to go. And later in the rounds, cards will just become in accessible because of how people play. So you need to prioritize getting what you need. But the action tiles aren’t just for getting cards, they each have powers as well, which leads us into the campfire.

Campfire

There is a campfire in the game, not a literal one, but that is another spot you can use the action tiles. In the game each action tile has a special ability. It might be grabbing a card from a deck or from anywhere in the grid of laid out cards. This is great when the cards don’t work for you or the one you want is blocked off. The downside is that you don’t get to play it immediately. Or you can play two cards, or get two roads, which are used for the landscapes.

But there is even more going on. You have scoring tokens that you can put out. Around the campfire are symbols. If you match a combination of two of them, that hasn’t been filled in, so a bird next to a berry for example, you put down a scoring tile. The more you do that, the higher scoring tile you can place. But it isn’t something that always works to do. So it’s a balance of do you want an ability or not? And all this leads into the final thig.

Game Length and Complexity

The first thing to talk about is game length for Meadow. And with that complexity, they really go hand in hand. Meadow is not a game with a ton of rounds, and because of that, you want to optimize your moves. And because you need to optimize and plan out combinations, it can cause AP.

I tend not to get much AP in a game, but in a two player game, in particular, I slow down in this game. And the person I played with did as well. There is a lot going on in this game, and it makes me think I’d prefer it at four versus two. One thing that adds to the complexity and time needed to figure out is a wild tile. It can be any number in a two or three player game. In a four player game you just have one through four. That wild adds in a lot of options. as you can repeat a number or a power.

Who Is This For?

I think that’s an interesting question as to for it’s for. The game is pretty, which might make some gamers think it’ll be too light. On the flip side, it’s going to draw some people in and they’re going to realize it is too heavy. This is not a light game, it gives you a ton of options and a lot of planning that you can do. So I think this is a pretty game for seasoned gamers.

Now, that isn’t a bad thing. I want my games to be pretty. But Meadow reminds me of Calico in some ways. Calico is a very pretty game, a very cute game, but it is challenging. In Calico you can play with most people because it doesn’t give you complex turns. Meadow can give you complex rounds that you need to plan out more carefully. So I think it’s mainly a thing to be aware of.

Final Thoughts on Meadow

I enjoy Meadow. I think that the game play is interesting, I like how you pick your cards. And I really like the artwork as well. My main concern about Meadow and how long it may or may not stay in my collection is the game length.

Like I said, I enjoy the puzzle a lot of this game. I want to figure out how to optimize my turns, but the question is, who do I play it with. When I played it two player most recently, a few rounds 4 player at Gen Con, it was not a fast game. Like I said, I think I prefer it, maybe, at four players just because it limits your choices a bit more. But even that, with more players is going to take a while.

Meadow might be a game that I just play with same people. Which is not a bad thing for the game. Sometimes you find a more complex game and a group to play it with. I think for me, it’s one where I wish, with the artwork, it was easier for more people to play. But once I play it more, I’ll probably appreciate it more for what it is.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Games Played at Gen Con 2022

Lost Ruins of Arnak

There are a few games that I have had on my shelf where I need to play my copy. Lost Ruins of Arnak from CGE was one of those games. And I got to play two games of it at Gen Con, including one full game. Needless to say, and if you saw the video, I liked it. It is a good game with interesting worker placement, light deck building and a great theme. I was worried that it might be more worker placement than I want, and while everything is mechanical, the theme makes it fun.

Ready Set Bet

This is one that is new, not even out yet. Ready Set Bet is a real time horse racing and betting game. One person is the caller who rolls the dice and shouts out horses as they move forward. The other players, in real time, are putting down bets on horses and trying to make the most money. You can rotate who the caller is, but the game goes so fast, and it is a fun role, that when I played it one person called.

This is a great con game. Everyone is around the table getting excited and shouting or getting into it. And you almost need to stand around the table so you can toss in your bids. It’s clever and fun and plays fast. And I could see getting this one and playing it a few times in an evening and having a great time.

Jekyll vs Hyde

This one I played twice as well. Jekyll vs Hyde is a trick taking game but with a twist or two. Firstly, it’s two player with one person being Jekyll and the other Hyde. The person who is Jekyll wants to keep the number of tricks as even as possible. Win too many or lose too many and Hyde advances on the board to the monster side. The Hyde player wants to get that difference up to get across the board. It is a fun idea and feels different, plus who top suit is determined for a trick is interesting as well. Not a two player trick taking game I need, but one I’d gladly play.

First Rat

First Rat has a silly but great theme. The moon is obviously made of cheese and you are rats trying to build a rocket to get to the moon. It is an interesting game where you are pushing your rat meeples up a track. You can push one up fast, unlock more rats or you can go slower and try and combo getting resources to build your rocket.

What you do on your turn is simple. You move one rat up to 5 spaces, or two rats up to 3 spaces as long as they end on the same color. But just that is a great puzzle. Plus how you pick what you do and what you’re going for works really well. It is a game that I wouldn’t have tried if it weren’t for Gen Con.

Draftosaurus

A game I already know I love and I own everything for. This was later one of the days at the con. I wanted to play a game but most of the bigger ones were either shut down as they take too long or already in the swing of things. Draftosaurus was easy to just sit down and play. The game is so light, but still it’s a lot of fun to play.

NFL Five

One that I demoed and came home with because if you demoed you got a demo copy. This is basically a way to sell packs of football cards, and specific ones, for the game. I describe it was rock paper scissors but instead of there being a tie option, you just need to watch. So it’s a guessing game that you can mess around with a little bit. It’s very light and just fine, but it was free and it was open for demoing so why not give it a shot.

Catapult Feud

Another one I own, this was me wanting to set down my bag after I bought Burncycle. Catapult Feud is fun, it’s fun building the castles and launching balls to try and knock it over. The game is barely there, but the toy factor is so high, who even cares.

Fit to Print

This is one that I believe was on my too demo list. Fit to Print is about making your best front page for a newspaper and scoring points based off of that. It was fun, and interesting because of the real time aspect to it. You start out picking out tiles which are articles, pictures, and ads for your paper. Then when you’re ready you try and set-up your layout as fast as possible to score the most points.

The game is simple and fun, and the real time element that didn’t bother me. I think because the feeling wasn’t intense. I had three minutes to do everything. But I never felt like there is too much time pressure on it. Nor is it like Fuse where it is always counting down. It’s fast moving and light fun, but the real time doesn’t add stress.

Spicy

Spicy was a bit of a miss for me. This is a bluffing game where you put down cards of different spices and they need to go up in numerical order, though you can skip numbers, but always ascending. You need to call out when someone lays down a bluff. Playing with masks makes the game trickier. And at three it was just okay. For me, the concept of the game and what it pulled off was less interesting than a bluffing game like Skull.

Galaxy Trucker

Here’s another game with a real time element that I like. I wanted to demo the new version of it, which I did. And I don’t really feel the need to upgrade my copy. Nothing seemed to have changed too much, so might as well keep what I have. I enjoy Galaxy Trucker because again it’s a real time game or a game with real time elements, but one that doesn’t take itself too seriously. And then if you are lucky, you can build up your ship so it won’t blow up, if you are lucky.

Let’s Dig for Treasure

A push your luck game. This one is very simple, you pull cards until either an evil skeleton gets you or pull up two worm cards. But you can bank your points whenever you want. The artwork on the game is fun, and as the person who demoed it said, it’s a restaurant or bar game. One that’s small enough you can take it along and pull out and play easily. Not much thought or strategy to it, but it works well enough.

FYFE

This is a random game that I got to try because the table was open. It reminds me a bit of Village Green and Calico. You are putting down discs to complete different scoring objectives in rows and columns. But you need to think about rows and columns so that you can score as many things as possible. It gets tricky as you start to have limited options to fill in and now which thing do you think it’s more likely to be able to get and score. Not one I needed to add to my collection but not a bad game.

Knights of the Hound Table

This is a small game that I was tempted to pick up. Knights of the Hound Table is a head to head battler. You put down one hound as an attacker, one as your defender, and one for their power. Then you compare, take damage and buy cards to improve your deck of hounds. The artwork is cute on the game, the game play with picking which power to use is interesting. Better for a small box head to head game than I expected.

Village Rails

I mentioned Village Green, Village Rails is from the same company and it shows. You are making rail routes to score points. Keeping track of where the tracks are going is trickier than what is in Village Green. But you don’t have the column and row scoring in Village Rails. So it is slightly easier, I’d say, and just as fun. Plus the artwork on the cards is amazing and the game itself felt pretty relaxing. A small box game I’d want to add to my collection.

Coatl

Not a new game but Coatl is about building out your best Coatl to score points. The game play is fine, it is basically collect pieces then build out your Coatl. I wish that the game would move slightly faster than it does because of how light it is. The toy factor is fun, but that is not enough for me to really recommend this game. It is more going to be one of those fine gaming experience that I’d play again but wouldn’t seek out.

Flamecraft

Flamecraft was only there for demo, I was kind of hoping it’d be there for sale. But Flamecraft is a worker placement game with dragons. You are trying to collect resources to improve shops and end up with the favor in the end. How you play is simple, you either go to a place and collect resources or to fulfill a contract. What makes this game is the artwork. I wish I had backed it for that, and now that I’ve played it, at least a few rounds, I suspect I’ll add it because of how cute it is.

Starship Captains

A new game from CGE, I snuck my way into a game the first day. And I got to play the full game which is nice. It is an action selection game where you build up a little bit of an engine, fly around, and try and complete contracts and defeat space pirates. The game moves quite fast, I would say too fast, though that’s probably a good sign that it leaves you wanting to do more and to try again to do even more.

Meadow

Meadow is one that I knew I wanted to see because it’s pretty. But looking at it and watching the GloryHoundd play of it, I thought it likely wasn’t for me. You can watch their video below. But the game itself was fun to sit down and try. I’m still torn on it because it’s a very thinky and pretty game. I am worried that AP would set in too much if I picked it up. I even found myself having to think through what I was doing for a bit. It’s one I’d love to try again though.

Asking for Trobils

Another one that was played on the GloryHoundd Youtube channel. You can see that play below. A worker placement game that is very light but a good amount of fun. You are basically building up traps and things to get Trobils which are worth points. Two players was fine with the game, I feel like it’d do a bit better with more and with a tighter board where you bounce each other more.

Twilight Inscription

One of the big games I wanted to try out at Gen Con. This is a 2 hour roll and write game based in the world of Twilight Imperium. It delivers on what it promises. And I don’t think that the game is too difficult to follow. There is just a lot later in the game when you get a ton of resources to spend and figuring out how to do that in the most efficient way.

The game comes with four boards. So you activate one board each time, whether combat or exploration, or whatever else they might be. And you do need to do a bit of everything, but you can really focus in on how you want to score your points. A fun game that I want to add to my collection.

Dwellings of Eldervale

Another game that I own but I hadn’t played. Sitting down at Gen Con is a great way to learn a game that you don’t know or you want to know more about. Dwellings of Eldervale was a lot of fun to mess around with. The core game play is fun for it and I like that this is a worker placement game but it feels so much bigger than that. You can do a ton of big things and just have fun with it. And there is no trading in the Mediterranean.

Oathsworn: Into the Deep Woods

And yet another game that I own. Oathsworn just came in before I left for Gen Con. I was almost tempted to move it to the top of the queue but Stars of Akarios First. We didn’t do the city and story part of the game. I say city, it could be different map locations where the story is happening. But we got into the combat and that was fun.

What I really like is how you can push your luck. You can draw cards for hits and you can pick how many to draw. You can roll dice and pick how many to roll. The more you roll of the white dice the more damage you can do. But at the same time the closer you are to busting.

Hero Realms

Hero Realms is one that I played day one and bought day two. And I even got crushed when I played it. But I really enjoyed the lighter deck building of the game. And I thought that it worked well for what it is. Plus it’s a two player game and battler game that is easy to learn. And the deck building combos are not hard to understand. I picked up the cooperative expansion as well which will be fun to mess around with.

Batman: Everybody Lies

I actually got this to the table last night again. But I did a prologue for it at Gen Con at an event. I’ve written and talked about it twice before. See my Highlights here for more information. But this is basically the Detective system with Batman theme from Portal Games.

The biggest change to it is adding in hidden personal goals. It means you might advocate for something for your character that you might not otherwise think about. Or that you might suspect is a red herring because it’ll answer a question for your character. It still is not competitive and the main focus is on the main case. But because of that personal goal it makes it different to play via Zoom like I did last night.

Long Shot – The Dice Game

I almost forgot that this was at Gen Con. But I’m glad I didn’t. A horse racing roll and write game, Long Shot is a lot of fun. I even picked up a copy to bring home. In this game you roll dice and move horses forward around the track. At the same time you are putting bets on horses, filling in spots on your board, and trying to be the person who has the most money at the end of the game. The whole track and physical board element of the game makes it feel different and the game isn’t that complex.

Caesar’s Empire

This is another one of those sit down and play a game because I needed something to do. And Caesar’s Empire is a just fine game. You basically are building our routes to get to cities and score points. The two player game needs a slight rules clarification, possibly. But the whole idea is that you can build off of other people’s roads. Is it worth it to get some points if you are giving them more points. All you do is build onto routes each turn. The game is okay, not one that I’d recommend that highly.

Paint the Roses

Paint the Roses is a great deduction game. It is hard to explain, I feel, without the board but with the board it is easy to explain. The general idea is that you’re trying to get the garden perfect and not have the queen of hearts take off your head. But each of you have a hidden (or multiple throughout the game) things that the queen wants. It might be two red roses next to each other or a diamond and heart shaped topiary next to each other.

You place a tile on your turn and then everyone puts down their clue tokens if it matches. So if I have two red roses and I place down a red rose next to two others. I put down two cubes. Basically giving information that I have two matches. And everyone puts down their clues. Then you need to make a guess on someone’s card. If you get it right you move ahead and the queen of hearts moves ahead one. If not, she moves head faster. Really great puzzle that I want to play again now.

Mythic Mischief

Probably one of the hotter games of the con, I got to play Mythic Mischief in a two versus two game. I suspect I’d like it better as a one versus one game. I also suspect I’d like it better in the blitz mode where you only can take so much time to do your turn.

Mythic Mischief is an abstract game with some fun powers and cool characters. But it’s also a game that induces a ton of AP (analysis paralysis) and for me that knocked the game a lot. The game just isn’t heavy enough to make it worth the amount of time and thought. If I want something like that, I want a big game, not this lighter heavily produced game.

Final Thoughts

I did what I wanted to do, I played a ton of games. I believe that is maybe up to 29 plays and 27 games? But either way, it is a lot and I had so much fun with it. I do want to do a Top 10 list of all of those games, see which my top ones were. So expect to see that tomorrow most likely.

What were the top games that you got to see if you went to Gen Con? And in particular, which ones were the top you got to play or demo?

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

How To Play Village Green

In Village Green, you are trying to score in both rows and columns, getting your perfect layout. To set-up the game, you get your village as well as scoring cards for the columns. On your turn you can draft a green card and play one down, if you want. Or you draft a scoring card and play one down. Ideally, you end with a full green, 3×3 grid, and six scoring cards.

When you put down a green card, it needs to be adjacent to another green card. And the flower type or the color of the flower must match. This locks you into what you can play sometimes. There are some plain cards with no flowers, and you can put those down adjacent to anything. That allows you to connect anything to that card.

The scoring cards are basically as easy as well. You either put it on the edge of a row or a column. You can have a max of six, and you cover a previous scoring card. Maybe it is that you need yellow tulips in the column, but you draft a scoring card for red flowers in a row. Now you could cover up either of them later to make them work together better.

The game ends when one person fills their green. Then the round finishes and scores are totaled. The player with the most points wins.

What Doesn’t Work?

The solo mode is just okay. Mainly because the cards don’t swap around as much. I feel like I would want to be able to wipe those cards every round or remove the left most and put a new one down, something like that. Basically, since you see so few cards, that can determine your score. On the upside, the game plays fast.

What Works?

Multiplayer is much better. Even at two there is enough change that can happen throughout the game. If I take a card for my green, you’ll see a new card. If I take a scoring, you see a new card. I can imagine that it’d be even more of that with three or four, actually, it has to be. Though, I wonder with all the turnover in a four player game if it might be more random.

That said, the fact you can’t cover up green cards, but can cover up scoring cards, that is really good. I like that you can adjust your strategy mid game if you wanted by swapping out scoring. So scoring is a little bit more free to pick, but when you play down a card to your green, that one is going to be there. And that decision matters a lot. But you also play nine versus only needing to play three scoring cards.

The game also plays fast, but plays fast while giving you good thinky decisions. You try and figure out ways to optimize your points. But your choices are really simple. You either take a card for your green or a scoring card. And then play a card down. And with most likely 15 cards total played, the decision space is a very good size.

Who Would I Recommend It To?

I would say almost anyone. The game play is simple enough. The thinking of scoring for both rows and columns might fluster some people. But the game play itself is simple. So they can just focus on rows or columns. To optimize what you are doing you’ll need to pay more attention.

So my only time I’d not recommend it to people is if they play with Analysis Paralysis prone people. I think one AP player, if you know they are, it won’t be bad. But two would take a fast game to a much longer game. And I’m not sure that the depth of game play warrants a long play lenght.

Village Green – Final Thoughts

I was hoping that the solo play in this game would be better. It comes in a small box so one that is easier to take places and just play. But while it is a bit more random that way, it isn’t horrible. And the multiplayer is very good. Overall I enjoyed my plays of it a lot thus far, and I want to introduce it to more people.

And I think that’s the charm of this game. Like something like Ohanami or Floriforous, this is a pretty looking game that is going to charm most people. The artwork is nice, and even with it being a thinky game, it feels relaxing to play. And I like it when a game does that. That’s what makes me like Ohanami, A Gentle Rain, and Orchard so much, they are relaxing. And this is the one that makes you think more than any of the others.

Have you played Village Green? Do you like it, do you want to play it?

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: B

Send an Email.
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

How It Plays

Calico is a very simple game. Your turn consists of taking a tile from two you have and putting it on your board. Then there three tiles out and you pick one of those tiles to add to your hand to bring it back up to two. You do that until you have your board filled. That is extremely simple, but the rest of the game is less so.

The rest of the game is how you score. There are three ways that you score points. The first is by getting matching colors. Groups of three or more of the same color get you a button. Buttons are worth three points at the end of the game. Then there are cats, they want certain patterns in certain shapes or size groupings. Cats can range from 3-11 points depending on which ones you are playing with.

Finally there are scoring tiles. These are tiles on the quilt that you need to place certain tiles around. You score points for getting colors or patterns around that tile that match it’s objective. For example, around the scoring tile it might want something like AA-BB-CC. So if you have two blue, to purple, and two green around it that’d give you a number of points. All of the objectives are like that, very simple, but tricky because there is overlap on them in that they’ll share tiles.

What Doesn’t Work?

For me, not much. I think one thing I need to get better at is one of the rules. When completing the pattern around a tile, say AA-BB-CC, you don’t need the two blues next to each other. While I never explicitly say that they need to be, people to assume that just because of how it’s printed. So it’ll be something that slows down or trips up players who don’t know that rule. I think that might hurt the fun for some players because you do need very specific things at times. So there are a few games, Criss Cross being another, where there is a specific rule or thing that needs to be emphasized.

While I think the artwork works for the game, I think it also will trick some people. This game looks very cute, and cute looking game, the assumption is that it’ll be fairly simple. This game has depth and a lot of decisions as you play it. The mechanics are simple enough to play with Grandma, but I’m not sure that all Grandma’s would be able to keep up with the decision making.

What Works?

Firstly the simple yet complex nature of the game. Turns are exceedingly easy because it’s placing a tile and taking a tile. The game with it’s artwork belies the depth that is in the game. There is a lot to think about when it comes to how you complete all of the goals. Do you focus more on cats or buttons? Do you try and get both patterns and colors for the scoring tiles? It’s a lot to consider and it works well. I really like this about the game, there isn’t a ton to keep track of in terms of game components, but there is a lot to think about.

I also like that you can’t plan perfectly in this game. There is no way to know what will be drawn out of the bag and available to draft. So there is no perfect strategy for the game, instead you need to adjust on the fly a little bit. This might make the game bad for some analysis paralysis players, but for me, it means that I don’t need to plan out my turns in advance. In fact with five tiles that I know about and only two being the ones I can play on a turn, it limits how much decision fatigue I can have.

The artwork stands out to me as well. The art is great from Beth Sobel and again it has a really friendly look to it. While I say that Grandma might not be able to keep up with the depth of it, but if you want to play a more hobby gamer game with less hobby gamers, this one is still good. The game feels like a challenge for gamers but is friendly enough for a lot of people because of the artwork.

My Final Thoughts

This is my type of game. Well, in terms of an abstract game anyways. I want something that I can do that’s a bit reactive and a good puzzle to figure out. Calico gives me a really good puzzle. And it’s worked well with the people I’ve played it with. And the theme is really cute. I don’t mind the quilt theme and I like cats, so that fact that it’s very accessible to a large group of people is good.

The complexity of decisions will keep it out of some players wheelhouse I feel. It is a thinkier game than it looks like, but still fun. I actually give three solid reasons as to why you might not want to buy this game in my 3 Reasons Buy/Not Buy. The video will be below so you can check it out. But for a lot of people who are just dabbling with gaming, I think it’d be a good fit.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: C

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

How Important Is Winning?

Now, this is probably a pretty open question that depends on the person. For some people, winning at a game is extremely important. They play board games to win and if they don’t win, they aren’t happy about it. Or they want to go again because to them playing a board game is about winning.

For other people, winning might not be important at all. They play board games so that they can hang out with people. They want the fun social interaction you get at the table around the activity of board gaming. For them, getting together at the table to play a board game, the board game is the reason but not always the point.

Is One Way Better?

No, neither way is better, and a blend of both of them is healthy. Where both of them become bad is when people take them to the extreme. Let’s look at two examples.

I pull out a board game. I have new players and experienced players at the table. The experienced player really needs to win, so they absolutely destroy the new player.

On the other side, I pull out an easy game and I have someone who is just there to socialize. It gets to their turn and they don’t notice, haven’t planned anything and continue a conversation for five more minutes before actually looking at the board. And when they do they just slap a move together to get back to talking.

You can see how both of these when taken to an extreme aren’t ideal. I’ve talked about this with board games nights before. The point of a game night is in the title, it’s to play games. That doesn’t mean that socializing doesn’t happen, but it also doesn’t meant that gaming is lost at the expense.

So How Do You Balance It?

The way I’ve heard this described is that you try to win but winning isn’t everything. It’s more about having fun while at the table. For some people fun is only winning, but going back to something I talk about with RPG’s, it’s about the whole table having fun. Thanks again to The RPG Academy for that.

So what does this look like in practice. In practice it means, if I’m an analysis paralysis player who must win, I find a move that will help me and I take that move. It might not be the perfect or ideal move, but I keep the game moving. If I am a social player, it means I pay more attention to the game. I notice when my turn comes up without being told. I pause my conversation and take a good move for me and then can return to the conversation.

These aren’t hard things. They keep the game moving in both cases and they both players take moves to help themselves win.

Anything Else To Do?

I think there are, I think that players need to think about what group they might fall into. Do they need to win, do they need to talk? And split up into different groups sometimes. The trick can be that some players need to win and need to talk and that is trickier.

Also, going back to a board game night, think about who is coming. If you mainly have people who want to socialize, go with lighter games. Go with shorter games. That way when a game drags out a bit, you aren’t that long and people aren’t losing what is going on. It’s fine to just play party games. On the flip side, if you have winning gamers, go with bigger and tougher games. That way when their turn takes longer, the game is already longer so it doesn’t stand out as much. And if you have both, don’t hesitate to split into two groups during the night.

So, really, winning is important in a game. That is what games are for, you play them for the experience and to try to win. But winning isn’t everything and at least at my table will never be the only focus. Talking and conversations will happen. We’ll get up and get food or a drink, but when it’s your turn, you take it with the intention of trying to win.

Do you fall more on the must win side of social side of board gaming?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

So how do you keep this from happening?

Now, I could talk about analysis paralysis players here, but often they can cause some of the problems. But I just want to touch on that type of player briefly. It’s hard to remove downtime for any game that they are playing. It is going to be somewhat incumbent upon that player themselves to fix the problem simply by having an internal clock and being aware that they need to make a decision. And even then, it can be hard for some analysis paralysis players to make a decision.

The other big thing that you can do is play game where everyone takes their turn at the same time. Or at least there are things that people do on the other players turns. There are a lot of roll and writes that I’ll be using as an example here. Welcome To…, MetroX, Railroad Ink, Criss Cross, Second Chance, Dungeon Doodle, and more, all have players doing things at the same time. Then there are games like Ganz Schon Clever, Twice as Clever, and Clever Hoch Drei for games where players take actions or use dice on their opponents turns. For a non-roll and write game, would be something like Dice Forge where you are rolling dice every turn, even when it’s not your turn.

But You Want to Play Other Games?

There are a ton of board games out there, though that aren’t great for people playing at the same time. But it’s hard to not play some games in your collection because they don’t work for everyone in your group. So how do you get them to the table?

For me, I think it’s about creating time and space with the people you want at the table for that game. Fairly often, or the goal anyways, is to do a couple of board game nights a month, as well as some of my campaign stuff. I look it my board game nights as two different groups. There is a casual group where I focus on games with limited downtime or limited strategy so that we can chat through them for at least a little bit of the night. Then I have another game night where the point is to play a larger game. And that group, I tend to pick players who can get through a big game in a night. I know that some games would just not work in a night with some people, and no real knock against those people, but knowing the audience is important.

The challenge can arise, however, if you don’t have a ton of people to play with. And to get these other games you have to play with people who get distracted or take a very long time on their turn. There are a few things you can do to help.

Set the Expectation that you are there to game.

Too often the confusion arises because people who show up to play games distract themselves with non-gaming things. Now, I’m not a stickler on this one, I don’t make people turn off cellphones or keep them away from the table. But the expectation is that people might glance at their phone, but no scrolling of Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook while playing a board game at the table, no playing an app game while you play another board game. The majority of the focus should be on the game and the people at the table. Just doing that will mean you don’t get as much downtime as people won’t be as likely to miss when the turn moves to them.

Set the Expectation that you try and win but winning isn’t everything.

This focused more on those analysis paralysis players. But it can be for competitive players as well who might try and quarterback other peoples moves in a cooperative game. Games work best when all the players are trying to win. But winning shouldn’t be everything. So having some chit chat around the table, letting people take their turns, and not taking too long on your turn to get the perfect turn help a ton with the downtime. I’m not always the best at letting chit chat happen at the table, but my goal is to never slow down the game, especially early game, with long turns. Maybe if there is an important decision if I try and win one way or another way, I might take longer, but make decisions faster, most of them don’t matter that much.

Play a Variety of Games.

This one can be the hardest thing for some people. They are stuck with only liking certain types of games, and I talk about playing the bigger games. But sometimes you need to just play those littler or lighter games with no downtime. Yes, someone can AP over what to do in Welcome To… but not nearly as much, and there is overlap in players doing actions. Also, when a player is creating downtime, it stands out more so than just then taking a turn amidst a lot of other turns that they are taking longer, if everyone is always waiting on them. And this can be a learning experience for other games as well. But sometimes just go towards games that help remove it.

Those are just some thoughts on downtime in board games, it certainly is something that can push some players away from board gaming who might be interested. So when thinking about your games, think about how you can limit it and how it can be made more fun as you play for everyone at the table.

What are some of your favorite games with no or little downtime?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

1 – Not Being Ready to Game

Now this one might seem obvious, but I don’t think that some people get it or are ready to game. While there are certainly social elements to game nights, that is meant to be done in the context of while you are playing a game. So come ready to sit down and play again, not ready to talk for 30 minutes to an hour and then play a game at some point in time and then talk more after a filler game. I fairly often theme in filler game nights for those more social times, but sometimes you need to be prepared to play a bigger game and it’s a game night, so that should be the mindset.

2 – Quashing Fun

This really is #1 through #7, but I want to call this out specifically. It’s something that was talked about in the thread a fair amount. Don’t quash other people’s fun because something in the game offends you and the flip side of this as well, don’t pull out a game that you know will offend someone. If you aren’t sure, leave it on the shelf, if you are uncomfortable, sit out the game. You can always bring it up after the fact and do so respectfully. And if you don’t know, ask before pulling out a game if the person is fine with it. This also is true for conversation on a board game night. We’re trying to create an inclusive place. If you can’t shut up about the debate last night, don’t come, if you are wearing hateful or polarizing material on your shirt, or whatever it might be, don’t assume everyone is like you, and don’t assume everyone wants to talk about politics or whatever polarizing thing like you do.

3 – Alpha Gaming/Analysis Paralysis Gaming

Now, I’m lumping these two together, and really, like I said, this falls into quashing people’s fun. But while that is more specifically about your tastes and views on things, this is more about the game itself. Don’t tell people what to do on their turns, sure they might not be doing an optimal play, but that’s okay. It might mean you’re less likely to win a cooperative game, and that’s okay. By the same token, don’t take too long on your turn, that is how people checkout of games, and I’ll talk about that later. But slowing a game down makes it less fun for everyone. For AP players, they feel the pressure to go fast and not let everyone else get bored, for the other players, they don’t want to get bored. Here’s going to be an odd statement, but alpha gamers and AP gamers tend to have the same issue, they need to win. The issue is how they do it, one thinks they know what everyone should do, and one locks up to make the optimal play. Winning the game isn’t everything.

4 – Sore Losing/Winning

As I just said, winning the game isn’t everything, and losing the game isn’t nothing. But don’t be sore at either of them. Don’t huff and puff and say that the game isn’t fair, that people ganged up on you (even if they did), lose graciously. Again, this steps on people’s fun if you lose poorly. At the same time, if you win, don’t gloat about it. Also don’t deflect and say it was all luck and that you just happened to get lucky to win, because someone might have been playing their hardest and gotten crushed and feel now like they are a terrible player. Instead be gracious in both winning and losing and that’ll make the game more fun for everyone.

5 – Cheating

Simply put, don’t do this. No game matters that much that it’s worth cheating at, at a board game night. I don’t care if you’re playing poker for the last piece of Rhubarb Cream Pie, don’t cheat. Cheating if you get caught ruins the game for everyone. If you don’t get caught, it makes the whole experience more hollow. I’ve found that the people who cheat usually don’t cheat to win, or if they do, they’ll also cheat to win by more, which makes it less fun.

6 – Readily Getting Distracted/Checkout of the Game

This can happen for several reasons, but try not to. Firstly, again, it’s a game night, you’re hear to play a game, not to look at your phone, not to have a conversation with someone who is playing another game, or someone who just showed up at the expense of missing it’s you’re turn. It’s fine to chat, but don’t get so distracted you lose track of the game, hold it up by missing your turn, and then spend a while figuring out your turn because you weren’t paying attention to what everyone else did. Also, don’t checkout of a game because you think you can’t win. First, you might not be able to actually tell that. But also if you start playing worse than you were, you can king make or otherwise mess up the fun other people are having. See your strategy and plan through to the end.

7 – Mistreating the Game

Now, as I’ve said, we have food at the table, so I’m not as strict about this as most people. In fact we’ve had Doritos and red wine (not the worlds tastiest combo) at the table before. But I’m talking about doing stuff intentionally to a game, or subconsciously. Don’t bend cards and throw pieces. Wipe off your fingers if you have Cheetos or Doritos’ dust on them before picking up pieces and cards. Just generally be respectful of other people’s property, it’s a common courtesy but be conscious of that, and resprect the rules the owner of the game has for their game.

So obviously some people in the thread were more clever than I was and created ones related to the actual seven deadly sins, but I thought it was an interesting topic for a gaming group and board gaming in general, so I wanted to write something up about it. Generally, I think that The RPG Academy gets it right with their motto, “If you’re having fun, you’re doing it right”. So make sure that you’re having fun, and make sure that everyone at the table is as well and playing board games will be fun for everyone.

What are your rules for gaming?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

AP (Analysis Paralysis) Player
So I’ve talked about AP players in the past and I’ll get them out of the way fairly quickly here, but these are the players, when it’s really bad, who will take 5-10 times longer on their turn than any other player. They overthink everything, sometimes trying to optimize points, sometimes just because they happen to see another possibility, so they need to think about that one a little bit, and they weren’t planning ahead of their turn. It’s fine to take of extra time on some key turns, but when you, yourself, call out that your turns are taking long, that needs to be a mental trigger to just do something, even if you don’t know if it’s ideal.

Game Recommendation – Sagrada
There are a few reasons why I think that this one would work well. First, there are no major decisions in it, yes, you have to decide what die to take and where to place it, but you have specific restrictions on it and the die pool is small enough. Everything leads you in a direction versus being able to pick what direction you want to go, and with that, you cut down on the AP.

Alpha Gamer
So, Alpha Gaming is mainly brought up in the context of cooperative games, but it can happen in any game. It’s when some player at the table thinks that they know better than everyone else, so they tell people what to do on their turn. This can come from two things, feeling like they know better in the game, or in cooperative games, desperately needing to win. The downside is that the Alpha Gamer is basically playing a solo game with other people moving pieces, and sometimes not even that, the Alpha Gamer will move another person’s pieces as well. If you notice yourself doing that, it hurts, but shut your mouth. Or, if that ends up being too hard, do what I do when running a game of D&D, if someone seems to be struggling with what they can or should do, give them two or three options, including the ideal option, just don’t tell them what’s the best option, but give them some help in in things to pick from.

Game Recommendation – The Lost Expedition
This game really tries to solve a personal issue, alpha gaming, in the game itself. The Mind is also another example of this. Anything that limits communication, I just think that The Lost Expedition is the best I’ve run across. You can’t discuss what cards you’re playing down when you’re hiking in both the morning and evening, so it’s the person who is laying down their cards decision. After that, the Alpha Gamer can have some fun as you discuss what’s the most ideal course of action, but the game is already giving you half of it that the Alpha Gamer can’t run.

Must Get It Right Gamer
So this one was harder to come up with a name for them, but they’re the gamer who needs to know the rules perfectly at the start of the game. If there’s something that comes up and is ambiguous in the middle of the game, they have to stop it and look up the rules. Now, sometimes it’s very important to get that rule right if it’s a major scoring rule or something like that, and I’m fine pausing a game to look that up, but when that person is flipping through the rule book between every turn and sometimes a couple of times on their turn, it’s dragging the game out considerably. If you find yourself doing that, keep track of what you’re wondering about and look it up either not on your turn or after the game. Don’t slow down the game by looking stuff up on your own turn, and if it gets to your turn and you don’t know the answer and that would affect what you do, do something else, and then continue looking it up.

Game Recommendation – Quoridor
Now, this is a placeholder for a number of games, and a lot of abstract games are going to work very well, because they can have simpler rulesets. But in Quoridor you either are moving a space left, right, up or down, or you’re placing a wall. That’s it, so it’s a fast game to teach and there aren’t rules to look up. Finding a game with good and simple rules that still offers a choice is going to be the best bet.

Between Turn Scroller
This is the person who gets distracted by something, anything, between turns. They have trouble sitting there and waiting for their turn, so they pull out a phone and start scrolling through Facebook, and then all of a sudden, it’s their turn, they don’t know what they want to do, because they were scrolling through Facebook or something like that. It can also be the person who gets up and walks away from the table to do something between turns, or starts a conversation with someone the second their turn is done. This one is harder to suggest things for because attention spans are short and sometimes between turns is quite long. My recommendation for someone who notices that they’re doing this is take up knitting or something else that keeps your fingers moving and brain somewhat engaged but isn’t as fully distracting. Once it’s more muscle memory as you know what you’re doing and you’ve done it a lot, you’ll be able to pay more attention between turns but still be doing something so it doesn’t feel like dead time.

Game Recommendation – Welcome To…
Now, there are a number of games that can fit here, and really any real time game could or simultaneous turns. In Welcome To, there’s just no downtime, same with Second Chance or Criss Cross, so if you know you have someone who can start scrolling at the table, just don’t give them enough time to do that by keeping them always invovled.

This Games The Best/Worst
This is the person who after having played the game for 10 minutes will declare the game the greatest game of all time or the worst game of all time. Now, sometimes this isn’t horrible because if the game is the best of all time the person is probably going to be happy and in a good mood, though that might also just mean that person is winning handily, which is why it’s the best, so it can come off as bragging. The this game is the worst side of things is tougher because if they make that proclamation 10 minutes into a two hour game, they’re going to spend a lot of the rest of the time complaining and that’ll kill other people’s fun. And it might turn out that what was thought in the first 10 minutes isn’t accurate to how good or bad the game really is. So if you’re one of these gamers, how do you combat it? First, try and free yourself from all preconceived notions. That’s way easier said than done, but often times when a game is the best ever it lived up to hype or if it’s worst ever, it didn’t live up to hype. So I guess another thing to say would be to avoid the hype market, now that means you probably can’t checkout Board Game Geek or something as much as you’d like, but it’ll keep the bias for or against a game lower. And the biggest thing is just bite your tongue at times. Now, if you don’t like a game after 10 minutes, you can make a comment, same if you like a game, but try not to use best/worst language and keep it to a comment. That way you have a release for some of your opinion in the moment but that doesn’t become the focus of the game.

Game Recommendation – Draftosaurus
Why, the game is 15 minutes long, so that’s really a placeholder again for this type of player. They might hate Draftosaurus, but it’s only 15 minutes long, so they aren’t going to be able to complain through a long game. And the game has enough going on in it that it should keep them somewhat entertained at a least and it looks good on the table. But basically, with this type of player, try and avoid the 90 minute long games.

The Sore Loser/Bad Winner
This can tie into the this is the best/worst game ever person, but this is going to be the person who can’t believe that they lost, that their strategy was clearly worse than everyone else, that the dice hate them, etc. When you’re done playing a game with them, you kind of wish you’d let them win because you’re done with their complaining. This can stem from several things, but probably the most obvious is going to be taking the game too seriously. And on the winning side, there are couple of types of bad winner, there’s the person who gloats, which is just annoying but can be dealt with, and there’s the person who makes it seem like they lucked into the win. For fixing some of this issue, first, remember that it’s only a game, if you win or lose, it’s still only a game, the point of playing games is to have fun first and foremost. Secondly, and this is stealing from little league, hockey, etc, train yourself to tell people good game afterwards. You don’t need to line up and give each other high fives, but try and compliment people on what they’ve done, and this really can go for everyone at the table to do.

Game Recommendation – Pandemic
More placeholding for games, this one is simply anything cooperative. Pandemic is just a good gateway cooperative game to get to the table, but if you can win or lose as a group, that’s going to make the poor winner/sore loser feel better about the game because they are in the same boat as everyone else. It also gives them a chance to see people model a healthier style of winning and losing at the same time they’re going through the emotion of winning or losing.

Now, I’m sure there are more types of gamers out there that can cause issues at the gaming table. And I didn’t touch on things like hygiene or anything like that, more on the mental and emotional side of board gaming. Hopefully this will give you some ideas of how you can improve your gaming habits if you fall into one of these categories, or what you can bring to the table if you play with someone who falls into one of the gamer tropes.

Which gamer tropes have I missed? And what games would you recommend to some of the groups that I’ve mentioned above?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

Real Time games have been around for a little while, but there have been more of them coming out recently. In a Real Time game, you and everyone else at the table are taking your actions under the pressure of the clock or something along those lines, so you are moving as fast as you can. Some real time games have you work together all at the same time, while others are still going to use turn order to determine when you go, and some are actively pitting you against each other as fast as possible.

What Real Time is great for in games is ratcheting up the stress level. Now, instead of being able to plan and think about your turn, you are hoping to get it done fast enough that time doesn’t run out on you, you are able to sink the enemy sub before they find you, or you can make it to the check point to get more time. Some games can give you that tension by giving you difficult decisions to make, this one creates a similar tension by whatever constraint you are under. And often creates more of it than the difficult decisions, but you have all the time you need, do. I know for some people that it can create too much pressure for them, and so they won’t play them, which I feel like is a fair decision. So, know your crowd before you pull them out.

One area that Real Time games can be quite good, however, is dealing with analysis paralysis players. They need to make a decision immediately, so even if they want to figure it out, they can’t. If you are dealing with an issue with AP players, and they are up for it, a real time game would be a good way to cut down on that play in a game. Now, they also might be some of the people who get too stressed out by it though. You’ll have to see with their personalities, but they might not like the pressure keeping them from playing their optimal strategy. I know one AP player who wouldn’t ever play a real time game, but I also know a couple who own and play them just fine. Games that have an element of real time, which I’ll mention some below, those might be a better fit than a purely real time game as well.

What are some games that use this mechanic?

Image Source: Board Game Geek

One of my favorites that uses this is Captain Sonar. Now, in Captain Sonar, you and an opposing team face off against each other in a real time battle to sink the enemy sub. Each Captain is shouting out orders and their crew are responding. The sonar operator is trying to plot the enemies route so that the team can locate where they are, get close enough, and fire torpedoes upon them. All of this while getting the torpedoes online and keeping the systems in working order. This game is a lot of fun, and, while the concept seems stressful, I feel like it’s less stressful than some. The fact that there is no timer means that if you want to move very fast and keep the pace frenetic, you can, otherwise, you can let the other team move more than you do, but either way, it’s a fun game of cat and mouse with both of you trying to chase down the other.

Fuse is a much smaller real time game. In it you’re trying to defuse bombs. Sounds stressful, and it is as there is a timer that counts down and plays tense music. As a group you roll dice, and then you can discuss and each of you picks one of the dice to defuse one of the bombs in front of you. However, if you can’t use a die, everyone has to toss back a die of the same color or the same number. But, once you’ve defused a bomb, you put the dice back, grab another one and start defusing that one. This game is very stressful and short. I’ve had a good time playing it, and when I have played it, we’ve played multiple times. For a game that is stressful, that’s a good sign that they designed the game well. There are also levels of difficulty, basically how many bombs you have to defuse, so the stress level can be lowered if you want, though, it’ll still be stressful.

Image Source: Asmodee

One that uses it only in part of the game is Galaxy Trucker. In this game, you are building up a lousy looking truck from scrap and watching it get destroyed as it flies to pick up items and then drop them off over three rounds. What works well in this game, though, is the fact that you build your spaceship in a real time element. The first person to get their ship to where they want it to be then causes everyone else to feel a time crunch and rush to finish building their ship the best that they can. Then, you get a few seconds to relax before your ships start getting bombarded by asteroids, aliens, and whatever else might be out there. Then you go and do that again, two more times. Now, I might be messing up the rules slightly, it’s been a while since I played it, but the main idea is there. Galaxy Trucker does a good job with the real time as you hunt for that perfect piece to put into your ship, but doesn’t make itself too stressful because the game isn’t too serious.

Games like Unlock and Exit are also real time as your score is based off of how well you raced against the clock. In these games, you are basically in an escape room, but it’s a board game, or a card game. You look at these cards, use items together, and try and find a way out of the situation that you’re stuck in. I personally like Unlock better because it’s reusable, in Exit you might destroy everything. And I like that Unlock has an app that counts down, versus Exit where the pressure is just trying to get it done in as little time as possible, but it’s just counting up. The pressure is definitely there more so with Unlock as you can watch the clock count down. I also like Unlocks solution to check if you got it right better than Exit. But both options are a lot of fun.

There are a lot more real time games out there as well. Magic Maze is a difficult cooperative one, but unless you’re playing with a somewhat dedicated group, you’re not going to get the full depth of that game. Plus a large number of party games use a real time mechanic as well. A game like Scattergories, Catch Phrase, and many others have that timer limiting how long you can think about things or how long you get to guess. Though, with some of the other games like Magic Maze and Fuse, when that time runs out, it determines if you win or lose, which is something you don’t get from those party games.

I’ll be curious to see what interesting ways real time can be used in board games. It definitely has been used well a number of times, but there seems to be more design space out there for new games to come out that are challenging and real time. And I know that there are a number I’m interested in, that I haven’t gotten to play yet. What are your favorite real time games? Or as they too stressful?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

Why were you rolling the die?

If nothing bad was going to happen, there was no reason for you to roll the die there. You aren’t in character spending time rolling the die over and over and over again. I’m guilty of this as a DM sometimes, not having any real pressure on the players while they make the die roll. So there has to be a better way to make the die rolls matter.

How do you do that?

There are two ways that you can do this. The first is immediate consequence. To stay with my previous example, you roll the die, you fail, the guards patrolling the estate or the town come across you and now you’re either running from the guards or you’re fighting them. It gives a threat of real punishment for what has happened and for failing the roll. It’s very straight forward.

But what if there’s an important map that the characters know for a fact is in that estate. They run away, they come back the next night, they fail again, they run away, they come back the next night, and the cycle continues and it gets pretty boring. We want to avoid that bit of boring in our role playing games.

So the other option is to, as the title suggests, fail forward.

What does that even mean?

Failing forward is the idea that you still get to unlock the door on a failed roll, but it comes at a cost. So you get into the house, but you startle a cook who screams. Now your plan of sneaking around the house slowly and avoiding all the guards is shot. You’re in the house, so you better use your opportunity, but this is going to be more of a smash and grab than a cat burglary.

Failing forward is a great concept to use because it can create a lot of interesting situations. In my example with the cook, do you kill the innocent cook who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, because the cook screaming means the damage is done already. But I’ve also managed to keep the story moving forward. Instead of trying the same thing over and over again either without consequence or on different days and the game gets stuck in a rut, now things are moving quickly. In fact, by failing forward and having the cook scream, things have to go even faster and the players need to be even more creative.

Maybe the rogue and monk make a run for the map while the wizard and fighter stay behind to deal with any guards who might be coming to their escape route. Maybe the wizard decides to cast charm person or suggestion on the cook to get them to say that they had just seen a mouse, which is why they screamed to try and defuse the issue. Either way you’ve ratcheted up the intensity of the scene and made the best laid plans of the players go by the wayside, but you didn’t grind the game to a stand still.

Making sense thus far? The next question that I would have had is, how do you keep the pressure on without it turning into the scenario where the guards show up and you get into a fight?

That is true, we want to avoid that, otherwise, we can just use that option. If your group loves combat or doesn’t mind having those combats, definitely you can go with that option. However, if you want to change things up, there are some things that you can do.

When failing forward, I’d strongly consider using a skill challenge to show the timing of what is happening. A skill challenge is where the players try and get a certain number of success before they end up failing and having the guards, in this case, swarm them. My rule of thumb is that the players need to get twice the number of players successes, so six successes for three players, before they get the number of players failures, so three for three players. To continue with the crunchy bits for a bit, you then set a difficulty check for the players to beat using their abilities. Maybe the rogue wants to persuade the cook to lie and say it was a mouse, the player then rolls their persuasion. If they succeed, they get a check mark on the success track, if they fail, on the failure track. Then it goes to the next player, and the next player cannot roll persuasion for their check. So everyone has gone around once, they have two successes and a failure, it’s back to the rogue, the rogue can’t roll what they’ve rolled the previous round, so persuasion, or use the skill that was previous rolled, so the fighter who rolled strength to knock down a locked door. And you continue like that until the  players either succeed or fail.

So, why might you do it this way?

First and foremost, it allows you to skip combat sometimes. It means that you get to do something different than the normal three things in a lot of RPG’s, either exploring, role playing with NPC’s, or fighting. It allows you to use skills that you wouldn’t use normally.

Example:
Player: I worked for the city, so I’m going to roll history to see if I remember the blueprints that were on file with the city. I’m trying to see if there’s a faster route that we can take.
DM: Sounds good to me, roll that die.
Player: 14
DM: You just succeed, and remember that there is actually a servants hallway that runs between some rooms that will let you out right next to the study.

How often would you use history otherwise? Or how often would someone think to look for blueprints? It’s a creative use of a skill that really only comes up in research capacity or trying to remember things and gets to be used in an action sequence instead.

Also, it allows everyone to stay more involved in the story and story telling. Live the above example, the players are having to be creative and are actually creating story elements for the world. This has a real anything goes vibe to it and that can lead to a ton of cool moments.

Skill challenges also can move faster than combat. The action is always focused on the players, so the DM isn’t taking turns and rolling for the five guards to show up. Once the players are in the mindset of thinking about everything they can do and coming up with crazy ideas, a skill challenge will fly by. As a dungeon master, this is where you are going to have to let things go a little bit more loosely. You won’t have been able to plan and lay out this estate in such a way that you’ve thought of everything the players will do. You’re going to want to say yes a lot, or yes and but/and.

Example:
Player: I worked for the city, so I’m going to roll perception to see if I remember the blueprints that were on file with the city. I’m trying to see if there’s a faster route that we can take.
DM: That sounds more like a history check to me, so why don’t you roll that instead. Since you worked for the city you’d be trying to remember what you’ve seen before.
Player: Okay, I got a 14
DM: You just succeed, and remember that there is actually a servants hallway that runs between some rooms that will let you out right next to the study.

That’s an example of what I mean by yes and but/and. They got to see if they remembered anything about the blueprints, because that is cool, but perception just didn’t make sense for the player to use with what they said. So swapping out for history probably means that the player didn’t have as good a bonus on their roll, but made sense for what they were doing.

What are some downsides?

This isn’t say that there aren’t some downsides to a skill challenge. The main one being is that players will suggest one thing, like my example with wanting to use perception with the blueprints, and when they can’t, then want to pick another idea that they can use perception with. It makes sense because they want to do something where they are likely to succeed. So you can get stuck with someone who is trying to figure out how animal handling can be used in this estate because they have a plus five in animal handling.

Solution for that issue is a timer of some sort. Either, they have to have something ready to go by the time it comes around to them or it’s an automatic failure, but that seems harsh, so if they are taking too long, put them on the clock. Give the player 30 seconds to come up with something, it might not be the most creative, but it’ll keep the game moving and everyone engaged which is what we’re always shooting for when we play RPG’s.

The other, tied into this, is analysis paralysis. If you can do everything, how do you pick which skill to use. What is going to be better, the ones with the higher numbers obviously, but using acrobatics isn’t going to be as cool so maybe you should try and use animal handling, but how would that work in the situation, and maybe the person after me is going to use athletics, so I should use that, and the person before me did something really cool and I want to do something really cool too so what is the coolest thing that I could do? Yes, that is a horrible run-on sentence that no one should ever write, but that’s kind of the point. That’s how the brain of someone who can’t decide what option to choose is working, they are stuck with too many options.

If you see someone getting stuck in a loop of not knowing what decision to make, how can you help them to keep your skill challenge moving along? There are a couple of different things that you can do. One is to use the timer. That will likely get a them to throw out something, but might end up making them feel like they are getting stuck doing the boring option. The other is to help them by soliciting ideas from other players or from yourself as the DM. If they are taking a while, toss out a bunch of options for them to pick from, and by a bunch, I mean three at the fewest, and five at the most. That’ll either give them something to pick or give them something to jump off of and get them out their run-on brain loop.

So back to the main concept of this article, failing forward. There are a lot of reasons to do it an to use it in your game. The main take away from this should be that failing forward allows your story to continue and progress while the setting up consequences down the line. You don’t end up getting stuck, but there’s still a cost for the players. It buys time for you as the DM to come up with that cost, and it keeps the players more engaged in the game.

Do you have any examples of failing forward? If you do, let us know about them with one of the ways below

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.