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How To Play Tag Team

Tag Team is an autobattler game. What that means in this case is you flip cards and those cards do affects. Your goal is to knock out one of the other players fighters before they knock out one of yours. But let’s talk a little bit more about how that works.

The Fighters

Each player is going to get two fighters. These fighters offer different ways to play the game. Some are more support characters while others are damage dealers. You pick your fighters in a few different ways. One is to just randomly assign or assign “starting” difficulty characters.

The other ways are drafting. You may draft the simple or competitive way. In the simple draft you select one character from your hand of cards and then swap with your opponent and select another character there. The competitive way is to select like before and then discard a character. Then you swap hands and select a new character.

Combat

Combat is simple, you create your deck or two cards to start and you put them in an order you choose. You each flip your first card and do what that says. Then you flip the next card and do what that says. And that is how combat works.

Between Combat Rounds

The meat of the game is in the choice here between combat rounds. Between rounds you draw from your action deck. The action deck consists of the non-starting cards for your two characters. You draw three of those cards and you select one to add to your deck.

When you add a card to your deck it must slot into the deck as it already is. So when you pick your third card, after the first combat phase, you can put it on top, between the two cards, or the bottom of the deck. This is because the deck never gets shuffled, so the order is maintained between rounds. The only way to change up the order of your deck is where you slot the new card in, and that changes it in comparison to your opponents deck possibly.

What Doesn’t Work

The decision space is limited. I think that is going to be a negative for some people. Mainly because the decision space is also based off of imperfect information. I know what and where you cards are from the previous round. I don’t know where you might add something in. So if you play a strong attack, I might move to block it, but you can play a card above it to push it down further. So it feels like guess work, or it might to some.

What Works

Firstly, I want to talk about the characters. This is like Dice Throne in that each character is going to be different. And like Dice Throne there are going to be elements that might feel similar between characters. It’s about blocking and attacking at the right time. So yes, that is something that exists in all decks. But each character is going to have a little twist on it. I plan to do my ranking of all the characters in the future. I want to do that because the characters are different.

The ease to the table is also great for the game. Every card does a good job of explaining what is on the card. So while they give you a little booklet to learn about the characters, that is not needed when you play. All the information to play the characters is on the card as you flip it. And they do this with text and symbols. So I use the text as a learn a character and then symbols after that because it’s faster.

I like the decision space a lot as well in the game. It is a fun head game to try and figure out where you place a new card into your deck. I know that you know I know where you best attack is, so you move it one lower. But I know that you know so you are going to adjust it so I adjust where I place my defensive new card. Unless of course you try and trick me and don’t adjust it.

Finally the speed of the game is great. It is fast to get to the table and it is fast to play. I think it is one that I rarely will ever play one match-up in a sitting.

Who Is Tag Team For?

I think Tag Team is for people who like a good head to head game. When you play it, it’s easy to learn and easy to play, so it’s a good one to play with people who like lighter games. I also think that it’s a great game for people who often want to play a game but find they only have a short time. It has good moments in the game as you block a big attack or sneak one through, but it is also really fast, so you can play multiple times in a sitting.

Tag Team Grade and Final Thoughts

I really like this game. I think that Tag Team works as a fast battling game to the point where it is going to likely get played more than Dice Throne. Now I love Dice Throne because there are more decisions to make in the game. But I thought that an autobattler could maybe only kind of work. But it is a game that works really well.

I think the big reason that it works so well is the different characters. Each one feels different and you need to plan out how you add cards and how you plan in the game. And it is so fast of a game. I think we played two games in person last night and it was maybe 10-15 minutes tops for each battle. The second was faster than the first even with more complex characters. It is going to go high in my Top 100 next year if I keep on playing it a lot because it’s that good.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B-
Casual Grade: A
Strategy (out of 10): 4
Luck (out of 10): 5

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How Much World Building Will I Do?

The answer to that is way less than you might think. With world building the question is always, how much do you need for that first session. And in this case there are a few more things to consider as well. It is how much world building do you need for that first session but also how much world building do I need to do for character creation?

Reminders

This is the hook that we are going with.

No one would mistake you for the heroes of old. They are now something of legend as were the monsters they faced. The demons of old were locked away. How do you know, because you live right outside one of those dungeons. Something strong is starting to happen around the dungeon though. The terrain is changing and you don’t know why. Some thing it is a sign that the seals are weakening. But if that’s the case, who is supposed to stop them. You are tasked to find those heroes from one of the larger towns and are sent out with provisions, a map, a well wishes.

And our first arc is going to be what I dubbed The Realization Arc which is going to be focused on understanding that things breaking down. That is it, and for the first session it is all about the inciting incident. What is going to draw the players to even investigate or understand that something might be happening?

What The Players Need To Know

Let’s start out with this to understand what the players are going to need to know. A lot of it is going to be pretty general, and some of it is going to overlap with what I need to know, as the Dungeon Master for my first session.

Let’s start with the big picture items, the starting location in general terms. And any particular details about the world, magic level for example, that players might need to know.

The Starting Location – Tennoch

Tennoch is a small agrarian town. It hasn’t grown that much because it’s not on any major trade routes but it is one of the larger towns in the area, maybe a thousand people. You are in this town or from this town because of connections to it.

General World Knowledge

This is a world where magic is a thing but not common place. Most people know of magic as something that happens in large cities or something that the gods bestow upon the people. For a small town, a wizard, sorcerer, or warlock would be unique. But a druid, cleric, or paladin might be more common.

It’s also a world where technology is fairly limited. Things like explosives might exist but are known in whispers and are rare and considered extremely dangerous.

Finally, while Tennoch is technically part of the kingdom of Meldros, Tennoch doesn’t have much to do with Meldros. Maybe every couple of years an official accompanied by a knight will show up and ask for some taxes, but there is no set schedule it just seems to be whenever the Queen needs more funds. At least you assume it’s still the Queen.

Why These Details for the Players?

So first it is a little bit about the starting location. It let’s the players know what type of setting there are in and what sort of background they could be picking. It’s a small but larger town for there area. But at only a thousand people at most, it isn’t going to be that much. The outlying villages near them probably come there for trading when a merchant shows up twice a year to restock some goods.

As for the more general knowledge. By naming the land, it lets the players know a little bit more in case they wanted to have moved in. It also sets what sort of rule it is and sets how little characters might know about the lands.

The other two give the players an idea of the sort of world it is in general. Low technology and medium magic. Magic is something that exists and people know about in a town. In fact, they probably have a temple to some god or gods in this town. So there is a cleric, possibly, but it would be a low level cleric at best with probably works more off of knowledge of medicine to heal than magic.

Session One World Building

So as I create for myself I am going to go with a more standardized way of doing it. That is going to be using name, defining feature, brief description which I lay out in my Dungeon Master Tools World Building article.

The Town – Tennoch

Defining Feature: Agrarian town, largest in probably 100-150 miles
Brief Description: While the town seems bustling compared to others in the area, it is very small. Most of the trade in the town comes from neighboring villages and farmers who dot across the land. They hold a market once a week. And twice a year a traveling merchant comes through whom they know by name.

The Mayor – Wilfred Brumble

Defining Feature: Stout man with a large belly who came from out of town
Brief Description: He’s from out of town but he has been in Tennoch for years at this point. But his house stands out as being a slightly different style. But he fits into the town now and has married someone from the town, Madeline.

Shopkeeper – Denny and Olive Ansen

Defining Feature: Gnomes who love to gossip
Brief Description: They are very busy folks running their shop. While most people do their shopping at the market, Denny and Olive are the ones who have a shop that is always open. So when you need something you come to them. And the shop, Thimble Trades and Goods, is always open because they live in the back, so a loud knock will get them scurrying up front to help you no matter the hour.

The Shop – Thimble Trades and Goods

Defining Feature: Jam packed with odds and ends.
Brief Description: How Denny and Olive know where everything is is a great question. There are boxes and shelves crammed full of everything. Often times their shoppers will wait outside and the gnomes will scurry around finding things. That’s because it’s hard to get through spots for the dwarves and humans who live in the area. Thimble Trades and Goods is the only spot to get merchant goods when the merchant isn’t around because the owners send orders with the merchant every time to keep necessities stocked. And they prefer to trade than get coin at the shop.

Notable Farmer – Maggie Fern

Defining Feature: Strong halfling who loves to cook and drink
Brief Description: She’s short, strong, and won’t let anything stop her. But while she is bullheaded when it comes to getting work done and dealing with problems she is also caring. When someone is sick and they need help on their farm, she is the first to bring food and help. She also always will tell you to stop and have a drink if you happen to come by her farm. While you won’t gossip with her, it’ll be a good relaxing time.

Why Only These Things?

Firstly, I could fill out the town more. But if we go back to that first arc article I talked about how one of the things I want is for my players to help with the world building. In particular with this first town, I want them to have connections. So while I could certainly talk more about maybe who has an inn which would be small with a couple of sleeping rooms, a stable, and a larger room for eating, for example, I think that might be something that is defined by the players.

So I want to keep it simple at this point. And I have plans in particular for the mayor and farmer in the first session or two so I want them defined. And a shop and shopkeepers are also good to have defined. You may not need them defined for your first session. I suspect that my players might want to shop because I know my players.

Final Thoughts on My World Building

You can see how simple I kept it. There is only a little bit of detail for the players and only a little bit for me. But now I know what I want my players to know going into character creation. And I know where I’m going to start my story and who I can work with as characters. Is there going to be more that I flesh out, yes. But some of that is going to be as I flesh out my session one. And I plan on doing that some next week so you can see how I lay out that session for the players.

Do you think that I need more world building done before I start the campaign? Or is this going to be enough to keep me going?

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Traps

The first area to cover is traps. Traps are generally not too complex a thing in Dungeons and Dragons or in your RPG. In a fantasy setting you have physical and magical traps that players can go into, and since I write these from the point of Dungeons and Dragons, we’ll work with that system.

When using a trap there are a few steps for creating something interesting. Though not every trap needs to be that interesting. It, instead, is able to be used to set expectations if you want. I create a trap in a room at the start of the dungeon, every player is going to check every room for traps. And I think there are good uses for that. But let’s talk about those steps.

• Type of Trap
• Finding Trap
• Disarming Trap
• Setting Off Trap

Type of Trap

Each of these is simple in it’s own right. But you need each of them to be there. Firstly, what type of trap is it goin to be. Physical, magical, and if it’s physical, pit trap, spike trap, poison trap. Or if it is magical, fire, water, changes room, teleport? There are a lot of fun things that you can do. But pick that and that is going to determine some other things as you go down.

Finding Trap

Next is how can the players find the trap. Even if it is arrows being shot off of a floor trigger when they step in a spot, there are signs. Or a magical trap, there might be a glyph that is triggered. But I think there are two worthwhile numbers coming up with. First, what is the difficulty for just passively perceiving the trap? If someone is very good with their passive perception can they just spot it? Or what is the perception check to see it. And then, what is an investigation if they are looking for a specific type of trap.

The second one shows up more if it’s a known trap. If in room one there is a pit trap, in room two they might look for a pit trap again. That is investigating to find something specific. So use both.

Disarming Trap

Next up is disarming a trap. Know kind of how this is going to work. Let players maybe brute force it, if you don’t have a rogue in the party. The Barbarian rips up the pressure plate on the floor, sure. But generally, rogue with thieves tools. Or if it’s a magical trap, do they need to dispel magic?

But this is again about creating that difficulty for the check. It might be a 12 for a rogue with thieves tools and slight of hand to be able to disarm it. It isn’t that complex a trap. But if you don’t have the rogue that day, or the barbarian gets there first, it might be a 18 strength/athletics check to rip it out of the ground. So know what numbers you want. But more so, know the ballpark. If you think they may come up with an alternative way know if you want that to be as easy as a normal way or harder.

Setting Off Trap

Finally, they might just set off the trap. Now, traps can be their own mini little puzzle in a game. What is going to happen if the whole party falls into a pit traps. Now they need to get out. Or maybe it is going to be timed event now for them to get through clouds of poison while taking damage?

Sometimes it is as simple as, a volley of arrows shoot and that is it. Or the player literally gets their foot stuck in a trap (or hand if they were disarming it). But think about how you want to use the trap and the trap affect to advance story or create interesting interactions if you want.

Bonus Dungeon Master Tool – Traps and Expecations

I talked about this a little but I knew I wanted to come back to it. What is the expectation when you create a trap in the first room of a dungeon? Well, the simple answer is, there are going to be more traps. In fact, there are going to be lots of traps. The player is going to check every room for traps.

Change Them Up

Now that the players are checking for traps there are a few things that you can do. Firstly, change up the traps. Not every room should have a trap, but when you set the expectation that there can be traps don’t waste your and the players time by only having one in the first room. But change up the traps, magical and non-magical in nature.

Only One

Or, do only have a single one. But make it so difficult and terrifying that most groups would immediately run in fear. Since a good adventuring party doesn’t have enough fear or brains to know to be afraid, they will just keep checking for traps. If you do that, though, make the rest of the dungeon a cake walk. All the energy was on the start of it, the rest is just empty hallways because no one ever gets through.

Develop History

Another thing, and last one I’ll talk about, is you can develop history. The history of the dungeon could be new traps are being created so it means that someone is still down there taking care of it. Or you might find adventurers who were killed before and the players gather pieces of history from them. Nothing like the first room and the adventurers see someone dead in a sprung trap. Now you immediately plant concern and can give them some history with the adventurers journal as to what they knew of this dungeon.

Puzzles

That is more on traps than I had expected. But I think that doing a great job with traps can make for an interesting campaign. And it is going to give the rogue something to do besides trying to steal everything that isn’t bolted to the ground.

But now we are onto puzzles. And puzzles, I think, offer three different routes to go. Though, the routes can overlap in some ways. But I want to firstly talk about who the puzzle is for, that is two of the routes. And then finally, what if there isn’t an answer.

Determining Who the Puzzle is For

This might sound odd. But there are two groups that the puzzle could be for. When you create a puzzle it is either for the characters in the game. Or it is for the players out of the game. Neither is a wrong way to create a puzzle and doing both can offer a lot of fun in the game for the players. But this is the first thing you want to determine when you create a puzzle, who it is for. Because that is going to change what you do.

Puzzles for the Characters

Puzzles for characters are going to be less of the cryptograms, jumbles, patterns, things like that. Instead, for the characters, a brain teaser or pieces of history and knowledge needed are the type of puzzle that you are going to create.

You go to the temple of the god of death, for example. Well, what is it that your characters know about the god of death? You create a puzzle where they need to know something about it. The players outside of the game don’t know this god of death unless you gave them a document with it all in there (don’t do this it’s a waste of your time). But the characters in the game sure do because it’s the god of death, they’d have heard of it at least.

So think about the checks that you want them to make. It might be an investigation to see if they can tell how someone beat the puzzle before. Or it might be a religion check to determine what they remember about the god of death. Again, it’s the god of death, the characters know of it for sure, but do they know the right detail.

So a puzzle for the characters is all about the checks that they do. And you decide how hard or easy you want it to be. But if you make it too hard, also have a way around it.

Example – The God of Death

So let’s run with this god of death example. There is a dungeon where they need to get down to the lowest level. They know that there is a secret passage called the River Styx that they can use to get down to the bottom. But they get there and it’s locked away behind a riddle.

“Bestow they worship upon me, pay the tolls once, twice, and three. Coins of death marked for their fate. Hours gone don’t tarry late.”

Solution

So, what is the answer to that riddle? The players need to provide the total value of the cost to cross the River Styx either three times or six times. Once, Twice, and Three could be 1+1+1 paying it three times. Or it could be 1+2+3, paying the set each time. I think I’d set this as an intelligence check of 10, pretty simple if they want both options.

But it is also a specific coin. What is a coin marked for death. Well that might be a soul coin from the hells. A soul given up to a devil would be interesting payment to get across the River Styx. This one is more of a religion check, and I think while people know of the god of death, it is taboo to worship them, so it’s less common. Make it a difficulty check of 15 for religion, so tougher.

What If They Fail

So what if in this case they all fail their religion rolls. They don’t know about the soul coins. But after feeding in a bunch of coins and nothing happening are they locked out of the dungeon? No, there is a longer path that is more dangerous for them. But if you need a roll to succeed to progress the story, always gives a different, harder way for them to go forward. If it is just a case of finding some treasure that would be nice. Sure, it is possible that they never figure it out. But if it is for anything related to story, give them that other option.

Puzzles for the Players

Next up, a puzzle can be for the players. This one I think is a bit simpler. Yes, you still might incorporate checks that the characters can do to give the players hints. But it is all about the players for this one. A cryptogram is a great example of this. You give them a little bit of a key and then let them get going on breaking the whole thing. It is something that all the players can take part in, but it isn’t part of the game and it isn’t meant for them to roleplay it out.

I am going to skip an example on this, but it can be a lot of different things. I made a room with gouts of flames that were being shot out. As I describe what the players watch, I kind of expect the players to take notes and solve the path. It isn’t something you do by trial and error but in that case, I also make it simple. And if the players aren’t solving it, I give them an intelligence roll and give some more details that make the puzzle simpler.

Puzzles with no Answer

The final thing is something that I think more Dungeon Masters should do. This is going to be the best Dungeon Master tip overall for traps and puzzles. It is simply, don’t create a solution. This is something that you can do with puzzles but also just with issues that arise. Throw the players a problem and see what happens.

Why wouldn’t you have a solution, though? The simple answer is, the players can come up with one. And this is something that can be done in character as well. You just wait until they try something that you think makes enough sense or is cool enough to work. When they suggest it or they try it, it can work as simple as that. And let’s face it, there is one of you and probably two to eight players, so more brains, more creative solutions.

This also can let you set a time for it. If you think, I want them to sweat a bit on this trap, give them ten minutes to discuss it and try different things, or maybe even longer if it’s supposed to be key and important. Or if it is supposed to be pretty trivial, make it that way, let the first cool or fun idea work.

Example from My Game

This came to be because I actually created one of these, kind of, last night in my game. The players were on a labyrinthian type floor of a tower, the main dungeon in the campaign. Every room was the same except for a few had plaques on the wall. The big thing is that they needed to get to the stairs for the next level. To do that they needed to go into rooms and figure out where to go.

In the rooms, and only a few of them, did I leave clues for the players. But the clues were fairly general. In the first room it said the following.

First Puzzle

“Beware – Zombies
Go this way.”

That was next to one of the four doors in the square room (one per wall). The players had to decide what that meant. But little did they know, and they messed this up in an interesting way, was that every room a character went into had more and stronger zombies. So if they fought, each time the zombies would get tougher and tougher and more and more.

Second Puzzle

So the player went the right direction, eventually, after one had done a loop to see how it would work and ramping up their difficulty. Eventually they got to another room with another plaque and a dead adventurer.

“Two Far
[down arrow]”

This meant head back two rooms and go south. Now going back is going to cause more zombies and harder zombies to appear. At this point, by the way, the zombies had +23 to hit and were dealing 1D6+21 damage.

The Real Puzzle

So the new puzzle was simpler but harder. How do we get through rooms without getting hit by the zombies. They had already spent a fair number of resources on a battle or two with the zombies. And I didn’t give them a solution. If they had gone the ideal route, it wouldn’t have been a major deal. But because they went further and created more zombies, it was way harder for them.

So two flight spells later and the Warforged character being disguised as a zombie the players got to the right room. But they needed to do it in a way where they weren’t taking 3-4 attacks of opportunity each, Because say it was three, all likely hit with a +23 to hit, and that’s a minimum of 66 damage, a lot for even a level 16 bard.

Final Dungeon Master Tools for Traps and Puzzles

This is the reminder that I give at the end of all of these Dungeon Master tools. Or if not at the end, sometime in there. But the point of everything is to create a great experience at the table. And that means progressing characters and stories as you go along. When you create a trap and a puzzle that should be in your mind as well. Because when you do that the most fu n is going to be had at the table for both you and your players.

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How to Play The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game

The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game is a cooperative trick-taking game where you play through chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring. Each chapter is going to give you different characters that you play as, and possibly additional objectives as you play as well. I don’t want to spoil what those are, so we’ll talk about chapter one.

Set-Up

Firstly, you deal out all the cards except one which is taken out of the game. So fewer players, the higher number of cards you have total, this matters for some of the goals, kind of. There are five suits, hills, mountain, forest, shadow and rings. Players do the normal thing of sorting their hand, and then it’s where the fun comes in.

The player who has the one ring is Frodo. They take that card and it goes clockwise from them with each player picking one of the other characters. Some chapters are going to have specific required characters, in chapter one, for example, Gandalf is a required character. Just because they are required doesn’t mean the next person need to take them, it just means someone else might be stuck taking them.

Then specific characters let you pass cards. You go in order from the left of the Frodo player to the right. Players chose to exchange cards per the rules on their cards. And not all cards are going to have an exchange. Also, some cards might have additional set-up instructions, which you see in chapter 2.

Trick-Taking

Then trick-taking is going to go in a pretty standard way. The lead player, for the first trick in the first chapter Frodo, plays out a card. Everyone must follow suit if they can. You do this until either everyone completes their objectives – which often requires all hands being played, or you can’t win.

There are special rules for the ring cards. The ring cards cannot be led out until they are broken. This is a mechanism that is similar to Hearts. Once it is broken, then rings can be led. However, while the other suits go from 1 to 8 the ring suit is only 1 to 5. The One Ring does have a power, though, it allowed the player of the ring to declare they win the trick.

Now you are very limited in communication in this game. You aren’t allowed to tell people what you have in your hand. Now, in trick taking there is often not much communication, so that is not a massive difference as each player needs to infer information from the cards played.

Winning

As I said already, you win when all the objectives are met and none can be broken. This might be a character who wants only zero or one tricks. If you still can play out tricks, you need to verify that player can’t win anymore before stopping the hand. But if you know that, then you don’t need to play out the full hand.

After you successfully complete the challenges of a chapter you go onto the next one. This is going to give you some flavor as to what you are playing through and the set-up and characters for the next chapter. Some characters will go between chapters, Frodo for example. So you shuffle up and play the next chapter and as many as you want in a night.

What Doesn’t Work

This game does change with different player counts. And while they do a good job of trying to balance it, I think it is simpler with three than it is with four. Mainly because some of the challenges require taking a number of tricks, and if it’s a higher number, Bilbo needs three in the first chapter, then it’s trickier with fewer cards. They try and balance it out, but more variables, the trickier it is.

What Works

Theme

Firstly, I think they do a very good job with the theme in the game. That little bit of reading is great. And the fact that every chapter changes is very good. Now only does every chapter change, it very closely follows the book. And I like that attention to detail for the game. It’s going to be fun for people who have just seen The Fellowship of the Ring as a movie, but more fun for those who know the books as well.

And I just want to talk a bit more about that. I think that they do a good job of changing up the characters as well. So it’s not just that little blurb of text that you get. But the characters who you can play as change as well. The first chapter has Bilbo, Merry, Gandalf, and Frodo and is themed around the party and Frodo getting the ring. Then you don’t have Bilbo for the next chapter because he leaves to do his own thing.

Ease and Speed of Play

The game is easy to learn and play, which is good. Though, it is a trick-taking game. I say that not as a negative, but as a be aware because the more you know trick-taking the easier it will be. Mainly because there are things you do in trick-taking to demonstrate or share information. Or it could be techniques like short suiting yourself that newer players might not know.

I also like how fast the game is. A good trick-taking game should be fast. I don’t want it to be a slog as I play through a lot of hands to get through a chapter. So one chapter being one hand means that you can easily get through it in a handful of minutes, I think on average probably 10 to 15 when you know what you are doing. With setting up the chapter, maybe twenty. And each chapter is fast to set-up as well, so it never adds or changes too much.

Cooperative

The cooperative nature of the game is great as well. Now, I don’t think you could do a Fellowship of the Ring trick-taking game, for more than two, and make it competitive. At two you could have Mordor versus the free lands. But in this case, it’s a nice element to the game, and because it is trick-taking, you can’t alpha game it. So that is something that makes is nice for a cooperative game where you win or lose together, but no one person can run it.

Who is The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game For?

Firstly, I think the fans of Lord of the Rings are going to like The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking game. Even if you don’t know trick-taking, it could very well work for you. And I think for gamers who know trick-taking, I think the changing challenges work well. So this is a game for most people, and I think it’s easy enough for a non-gamer to pick-up the rules and learn the game. Again, it helps that there is a bit of Hearts to it because a lot of people have played that on the computer.

Final Thoughts on The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game

I really like this game. I already know that I like trick-taking, so the Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking game, combining a theme and mechanisms I like I knew it’d likely be a hit. That said, I am really pleased with how it is directly tied to the book. Those bits that are glossed over are nice to have here and gives for some very fun chapters.

And I think the variety in chapters and characters are good. And without that, it’d be just an okay game. The characters are all fun and different. But when you get a really different chapter to play, you understand the detail that went into the game. It is truly a game for fans of Lord of the Rings. And this one is just The Fellowship of the Ring, so that means we should be getting at least two more.

This is game also with a solo mode. So I want to get it played solo, and it might be a game that I play solo on Malts and Meeples. I suspect it is going to be better with more, but either way, it’s nice to have a solo mode.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: B-
Strategy Score: 7 (out of 10)
Luck Score: 5 (out of 10)

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Top 5 Games Better with an Expansion

5. New Frontiers – More Variety

I’m not only telling you which games are better but how they are better. I enjoy New Frontiers, a Roll for the Galaxy Board Game quite well. And even out of the box it’s a fun game. But this is one of those games where the expansion does it right. It just adds in more stuff. That means you get more variety and variability in what you start with. Is it needed for the game, not completely, but I think that it makes it better because it just adds in a little bit more to the game.

So what does it add, it adds in new home planets, new planets and new development that you can do. All of those things are in the base game. It also adds in new actions that you can take. Those new actions replace the old ones and they provide again that added variety. And you can add in goals with them as well. Plus there is a solo mode now. But mainly it just adds more of what you already like about the game.

4. Pitchcar – More Track

I think this one is easy to understand why it’s great to have expansions. Expansions just give you more track for the game and allow you to create crazier different routes to go on. It gives you that freedom to decide, do we want to have a track that goes up and over? Do we want to do a loop? Do we want to make some narrow sections or really long straightaways? All of those things are now an option. I’m not sure that I need to say more than this, so I won’t.

3. Marvel United – More Characters and Villains

This one is odd because I think there is a tipping point for it. Now I am definitely past that tipping point. I have everything in terms of game play for Marvel United. And there is so much stuff. I haven’t even dug into all the Marvel United: Multiverse stuff. But this is a great and simple to table cooperative game. It is made even better by the fact that everything is plug and play. It is so easy to drop in a villain or a hero from another set and just start playing. No matter who it is, it’s just a few minutes to get started.

And I think the expansions really do help. The core box of Marvel United is fine. I don’t think it stands out as an amazing game. Though, if you’re not a gamer, it’s good because it’s easy enough to understand and no heroes or villains are too complicated. And while none of the heroes or villains are complicated in the expansion, they tend to add in more flavor which is great and I think for people who enjoy the base game at all, they are needed for more robust game play.

2. Dice Throne – More Characters

Speaking of more characters, I think that Dice Throne really benefits from the expansions. And the expansions are just that, they are more characters for the game. The big reason is that the characters in the base game are fun, but they aren’t great. The Barbarian feels pretty standard, and that is on purpose. But you get six characters, originally, and if you are like me and love you, you want more.

So I think that the expansions are really great. And I think that the Marvel expansions are great as well for multiple reasons. One, they are fun and thematic. But it is also a great spot to get people into a game system who might be interested in it without the IP (intellectual property). And those characters are thematic as well, so it works very well.

1. Lost Ruins of Arnak – Expedition Leaders

And this is the game that made me think of the topic. I got to play Lost Ruins of Arnak twice last night. One time was just the base game, and the other time with the Expedition Leaders. Now, I love Lost Ruins of Arnak even as the base game. But the Expedition Leaders make it a even better. So what does Expedition Leaders add?

It is mainly just adding in what it says, expedition leaders. These are unique starting cards and leaders wit their own flavor to the game. It really makes for a more interesting experience because now everyone has something unique that they do in the game. And while the base game offers variety, this adds in more, just through the leaders. But it also gives you new research tracks and more cards to mix in, so it’s a great expansion where it just adds in more. But not just more, a bit more complexity as well, if you want it.

Final Thoughts

If a game isn’t good out of the box, I don’t want an expansion to fix it. I want a new, fixed, version of the base game. And I think that for the most part publishers are good about this. All of these things where I talk about the expansions, the base game makes a good game better.

The closest to a game that I’d be not so interested in without the expansions is Marvel United. Spinmaster Games wanted the base game to be simple because they wanted it to be in Target. And I understand that, but as a gamer, it felt like it was too little to me. I could see the fun in it, but I wanted that more, and because I love Marvel I got that more for it.

But the others really are great games without the expansions. The expansion just make a great game better. And the times where I’ve seen an expansion needed to fix the game, it’s often Kickstarter. And it’s often a time where they offer that expansion that makes the game good as part of the Kickstarter or crowdfunding campaign. Which I find to be a bad practice and definitely don’t want companies doing. Always give us the whole game in one box.

What are some of your favorite expansions for board games?

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Catch up on my Top 100 Games (of all Time) 2023 Edition:

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 11

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 10 through 1

10. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Let’s start off with Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game at #10 this year. Detective is deduction game where you and your teammates are trying to solve cases. The base box comes with five cases that take about 2-3 hours each. And you’re up against the clock, in the game, to solve everything and figure out what answers you need as you get quizzed on what happened and the who, what, and why of the case at the end. Plus little details that you might have missed or you can piece together.

This is like a crime television drama. I don’t love watching those, but playing in one is amazing. You actually get to put together deduction skills and piece together what happened. Sometimes it’s easy, and other times it is hard, but it’s always worth it.

And this game does a good job using technology as you play. Part of how you get information is interacting with a computer and a database to pull up details that might already exist on the case. Or it might be details that already exist on people in the case. It really helps make Detective into a great immersive experience.

Buy Detective

9. The Great Split

Next up we have The Great Split, a new game to the list and one that does a single thing well. In The Great Split, it is primarily an “I split, you choose” game. What does that mean? It means that I have a group of cards and I put them into two groups. You pick one of those groups and I get the other one back. Then we both use them for scoring, which is what everyone is doing at the same time. So, I love the simplicity and simultaneous nature of the game play.

Plus the scoring is nice in the game as well as it isn’t too difficult or too easy. What it mainly is, is pushing up on on tracks for artwork, literature, gems, and money. And each of them is going to score in a different way. Some of them score with how well you are doing against a market or against a scoring track. Others score, the gems, with your lowest of the two gem tracks. So it’s figuring out what you want to go for, because that’s not all the scoring.

There is also contracts in the game. Those are on the tracks as well, but you have other tracks that you want to push up on. Because they make the contracts you have, loaning your art pieces out to museums and stuff like that, worth more. But if you’re pushing up on those tracks, you aren’t on the main scoring tracks, so it’s a really good balance. And all of that with very simple rules teach and very simple game play.

Buy The Great Split

8. Floriferous

Now we have Floriferous, a game that has made it’s way higher up on the list from last year. And some of that is what I redid how I thought about the list, some. I now put more stock into the games that I want to play all the time and do play often, as well as the ones that give me a great experience when I play them. Which is why there are fewer campaign games in the Top 10, though, don’t worry, their are still several.

But Floriferous is a drafting game of building up your best bouquet of flowers. But how you draft and how you know what you are scoring is what I love about the game. You lay out the cards to be drafted from at the start of the round. And then players take turns drafting from the first column of cards. Where you draft in that column then determines your drafting order for the next column. It makes for great decisions as decide to take a less ideal card to make sure you get the perfect card next column.

And then there is the scoring. A little of the scoring just exists at the start of the game. Most of what you score you need to draft. So I need to draft a card that says “2 points for all purple flowers”, for example. And I can do that, but the scoring cards are always at the bottom of the column. That means when I take a scoring card I’m going to be going last next round which is a choice, as I said above, that I really love.

Buy Floriferous

7. Planet Unknown

Next up we have Planet Unknown a terraforming, polyomino laying game. And it’s one that is not that hard to teach, if you have the game in front of you. But it does some very cool things, which I’ll get to in a second here. But the game is about filling up your planet with tiles, clearing out meteors that have hit your planet, and building up on various tracks of nature, water, technology, rover mobility, and civilization.

The game is able to be played in two ways. The first way is a simple generic way where everyone has the exact same thing. I think it is a solid system if everyone is learning the game, and you have new to gaming people in there. But once people know the system at all, flip over the boards and the groups going to the planets. That is when the fun begins as everyone is working a little bit differently and has their own ways and timings as they go up the tracks while still playing the same game.

And the one thing I haven’t touched on yet is how you pick your tiles. There is a lazy susan in the middle with all of the tiles on it. And on your turn, you turn the lazy susan to the side you want facing you so you get the tile that you want. It’s a tough decision, and then everyone else takes from the side facing them. Or at least kind of facing them, because they’ll have a marker, placed at the start of the game, that determines where they take from. I love that mechanism as I can get what I want, or I might choose to mess with you.

Late Pledge Planet Unknown

6. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Then we have Lost Ruins of Arnak. And this one I do want to specify that it is a top 10 game for me with the first expansion. The second expansion definitely keeps it up this high as well, but the first one is needed, in my opinion. It takes Lost Ruins of Arnak from a fun game to one of my top games of all time.

So how does it play, and why do I like the expansion so much. Well, at it’s heart, The Lost Ruins of Arnak is a resource management game of going out, collecting resources and turning them in to move up a research track. But there are a number of twists with it as well. Because I also am building up a deck of cards that let me do more actions or power up the actions that I do take. And I love that aspect to it.

So let’s talk about what the expansion adds and why I think Expedition Leaders is very important to the game. In Lost Ruins of Arnak, base game, everyone has the same camp, same workers, and same starting deck of cards. And there are two tracks which you can go up on. It’s fun. But Expedition Leaders says your camp, your cards, how many workers you have, all of that can be unique now. Because you have a leader that makes you unique and I really love that.

Buy The Lost Ruins of Arnak

5. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is the next game on the list coming in at #5. And it is one that I haven’t played in probably eight months. I really need to get it back to the the table. But I love this engine building game and another game about terraforming a planet, but this time, I’d say, it’s way more about building up that engine to generate more resources and points.

The game, like I said, is about building up that engine and determining when to activate everything, and when to pick an action to do based off of what you think your opponent is going to do. How does that work? Well, the game has five actions and the actions that are played out by the players that round are the ones that are going to happen.

The actions also fire off in a particular order. So if I pick research it’s action #5, so it’ll go last. Someone else might pick activating actions, and that’s #3, so it goes in that order. Which ever one you pick, you get a special bonus for it, while your opponents get whatever the basic action is (which you do as well). So it’s about trying to not match with your opponents to get more actions done and to figure out what benefits you the most. Of course, if everyone is doing that, well, then no one might pick that one action everyone wants.

Buy Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

4. Stars of Akarios

Now we’re onto one of the big campaign games. And you can see game play for this one on Malts and Meeples. Stars of Akarios is a game that I absolutely enjoyed all that I did. Some parts are better than others, but as a whole, I think the game is a ton of fun. It’s a big space adventure that gives me vibes from Enders Game and Space Dandy, two really different things, but it works for this game.

The game is split into three parts, but we’re going to talk about two of them. First part is planetary exploration. This has a 7th Continent type feel to it with flipping over locations and interacting with places. Plus there is a lot of story that you can find as well for the different planets. There are skill checks and things like that, but a lot of it is story and the choices you make in that story unlocks new things that you can do.

The main part of the game is tactical space combat. It’s about using your dice to flank and out maneuver the enemies so that you are in the right spot for a big hit and they can’t hit you back. I adore the puzzle that this game provides in this space combat. It is good enough to just be a game by itself, but the story and the world/universe that is being built in the game is just amazing. I can’t wait to get back to it, and maybe it’ll be a campaign game that I come back to and try and play through solo sometime.

Buy Stars of Akarios

Note the 1.5 version of Stars of Akarios is coming out. There should be a late pledge available soon.

3. Dice Throne

Next up is Dice Throne. I believe that my #2 and #3 flipped spots from last year. Dice Throne is a battling game of taking characters up against each other and rolling dice, Yahtzee style, to deal damage. You get a better roll, like a large straight or all sixes and you get to do more damage.

The game really shines in two areas. The first is how they manage to make all of the characters feel different. I have Marvel Dice Throne pictured here, but in the video I have Dice Throne Season 1 and I figured out coming soon there will be 35 different characters. And all of the characters do feel different. They come with different tokens that change up how they interact with the enemies or how they ramp up to deal more damage themselves.

And then there is the card play in this game. What doesn’t make it just pure dice chucking are these cards. Some of them are upgrades to your attacks that offer better results and more damage when you roll them. Other times, and I’d say most often this, it’s about getting better results on your dice. You don’t want to end up being stuck doing nothing if you try and shoot the moon and go for all sixes. So you keep cards to manipulate the dice. It’s a great system that offers more depth than you’d think from the initial description.

Buy Dice Throne

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

Now we have Tainted Grail at #2. This one moved up, I think, because I made it through all three campaigns, wrapping up the third one this year. And all of them offer something unique and fun that is really enjoyable to play. I love how you start in the middle with the first campaign and then the second takes place 500 years later and the first 500 years before it. It offers a lot of interesting storytelling, which the writer really takes advantage of.

The game play is also pretty slick once you get into it. The combat and diplomacy checks are done through card play. And while that is an important part of the game, it’s not too hard to build up something that is powerful enough. Or players with specialize in different areas. One element about the combat that I really like is that you need to pay attention is to the enemies attack. How much damage you deal determines the enemies attack. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to take a lot of damage.

But the game really shines around the exploration and survival aspects of the game. I think it’s best on story mode because the story is so good. But you always need to be keeping track of the menhir that you have lit. Because if they go out, then you start to lose parts of the map as the wyrdness takes over. And that limits where you can explore. And as I said, exploration is the best part of the game. It is a chance to dive into that story. So it’s a balance of story, resource gathering, and then just surviving that makes Tainted Grail work so well.

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven

My #1 hasn’t changed, it’s still Gloomhaven. Though, you can say that it is Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, and Frosthaven all rolled into one. Jaws of the Lion might be a game that I show off here on Malts and Meeples. And I’m now playing through a campaign of Frosthaven.

This is a classic dungeon crawling game where you go into a scenario and need to tactically move around and kill all the bad guys. Or at least that’s the objective in a lot of base Gloomhaven’s scenarios. The other ones offer more variety. But it’s also a game of leveling up your characters, unlocking more abilities, and then eventually retiring and getting a whole new character to play with.

And getting those abilities and playing them out is where the game is amazing. You play out two cards from your hand each turn. They have abilities on the top and bottom. And you’ll activate one of the top abilities and one of the bottom ones. Plus you need to figure out where in initiative that you want to go as well.

And the variety in them and how different the characters are is impressive. It’s like a lot of the games in my Top 10, I like the variable player powers and variability in what you are doing. Gloomhaven and all the following games offer a ton of that. And it’s sad to lose a character to retirement that you’ve spent time with, but exciting to unlock something new. This is just an amazing game that deserves the love it gets.

Buy Gloomhaven

Thanks for Joining Me

Thank you for joining me as I went through all of the games on this list. I really have fun doing this every year. And I hope that you have fun watching along. I appreciate everyone who has been in the chats and watched the videos. It means a lot to me to see that people are enjoying it. Let me know what some of your favorite games are.

Upcoming Streaming

And join me for future upcoming streams. I made a comment that my Monday streams might be changing. We’ll have to see on that, it might just be less often, or it might move to a different night, it depends on some variables as I look at the new year. Right now, though, that it’s changing. I plan on streaming Monday nights at 9 PM Central. I won’t have some on the 25th of December, I will be around next week.

Then on Wednesday, I generally stream a campaign game. I won’t be doing that this upcoming week. And I’ll be missing the following week. But as I start 2024, I plan to stream Rogue Angels. A game that I think will be in my Top 100 starting next year. One of my rules was that I needed to have played a physical copy. And thus far I only have played it digitally. Now I’ll be able to play it in person, which I’m really excited for. So join me for that starting in 2024. And Wednesday streams start at 8 PM Central time.

But the best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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Horizon Zero Dawn – Story

I won’t go too far into the story, as it is one worth discovering on your own. But you play as Aloy, an outcast from the Nora tribe. Shunned by this primitive society of hunters and warriors, her goal is to get into the tribe which can only happen when she is old enough to take the test and become a hunter herself.

However, the world is not an easy one to survive in. Technology is primitive except for machine creatures. And these machines have been become more hostile over recent times. So it is a struggle to survive in this world as part of a tribe, let alone cast out from one.

Horizon Zero Dawn – Game Play

The game play is mainly combat focused. You are in third person view where you climb around terrain, use a bow and arrow to fight, or use your spear, it’s up to you on how you want to play. You can hack and slash or you can snipe, or somewhere in between the two of them.

It’s not a button masher, though, in that there aren’t combos. There are certain skills that you can unlock, like a silent strike/assassination if the enemy hasn’t noticed you. But those are prompted for and is a single click versus a combination of clicks. So you can get better if you want to at those things, or you can use the skills you started with.

I will say, I prefer to play on easier modes because I generally play games for the story. Zero Dawn offers a lot of combat in that still. But I didn’t need to learn how to use some of the other equipment and traps as much because of the level I was on. Still with that, you would generally be using your bow and spear in most combat.

What Didn’t Work?

I just said, I play games for the story. And I love the story in Horizon Zero Dawn, however, there is a stretch, after the prologue of the game into the main story where that story is slow. You follow along with events that do matter, but don’t fill you in on the main story. And that, I wish, were more part of the game throughout. If you rush the main quest it could be, but that’d be rushing everything you are doing.

And finally, not a major negative, just if the story sounds interesting, you do fight a lot even in story mode. I suspect you might fight a bit less, but only a bit. You mainly just see easier monsters to fight, or weaker versions of the monster. So you still fight a lot during the game.

What Works?

Story

Now, on the flip side of what I said about the story the first time, the story really does work. When you get into the teeth of it and information dumps, you find out so much about this world which is fascinating. And the characters you meet along the way are really good. So it creates a very compelling experience with some good choices as to what you do in it.

I want to mention the characters you meet. But I think that is one thing I wouldn’t have minded more of, but also isn’t a negative, you get a lot of your standard branching ask for questions/backstory on things and then prompt to start quest. I want more choices and more choices with the characters. Side quests that were locked or unlocked by how you answered, not major things, but minor things. Kind of like I think of with Dragon Age: Origins. Benefits you get from how you interact versus more static, because the characters are great.

Combat

And the combat is not hard. Now, I again will remind you that I played on the story mode. That is the level of my gaming skill for the most part. I’m there for a kind of cinematic ride or experience. And Horizon Zero Dawn does a good job of not forcing combat to be too complex or hard. Complex is likely the better term.

And I like being able to pick how I want to fight. Most fights did end up getting up close and personal with the bigger monsters or bosses. But with smaller monsters, I got to the point where they are easy enough to just take out. So I spent a lot of time sniping those versus rushing into the fray.

Ending

I also think they do a good job of completing the story. Might seem obvious it ends, but it needs to complete the story and have enough to continue the story. I do not know if Horizon Forbidden West was the plan all along, kind of seems like it. But, it easily could have been a situation where they knew they wanted a sequel so they didn’t truly end the story of Horizon Zero Dawn. But instead we got a real ending to this part of the story and promise of more.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed that gaming experience that I played over several months. The game is fairly long, but not that long. And I definitely didn’t do or find everything that I could have. That said, I still experienced a lot of great game play and a lot of great story.

I don’t think that this game will suffer in play by playing at harder levels. I really think it mainly scales the difficulty of monsters you fight, not how many you fight. Or at least most of the combats will still exist no matter what. So you get story and you interesting combat throughout the game. Like I said, I maybe wanted more moments of heavier story thrown throughout the game. They stack up at the end, but overall a great experience of combat and story.

This is a game that I think will work for most people. There are some difficult moments in it, mainly dealing with loss. But it is not a game that is graphic in violence or sex. There is violence, but that is happening within the flow of the game. And it’s an action adventure game versus being a heavily RPG style game, so interactions are kept simpler.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: A
Casual Grade: B- (too much time spent fighting between story I think for a very casual gamer, but just barely)

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Thanks for Listening to 10 Minute Marvel

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Comments or Questions around Marvel Comics

Are you a comic reader? Which is the way that you prefer to read them? I personally use Marvel Unlimited, but there’s an element of going into a comics store weekly to get the newest issues that I miss. So do you still go that way or read digitally as well?

You can let us know all of those things down in the comment section below. Or tweet them to me @TheScando or by using #10MinMarvel. And there is now the 10 Minute Marvel Facebook page as well where you can join in the conversation, here.

Thank you again for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

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The Plot – Shortcake Cake

Ten is a high school student who takes the bus from a small town into the bigger city every day for school. One of her good friends from the town and going to her school has a boarding house where she lives. A room is open there and after visiting Ten realizes that is probably going to be a better experience for her.

Of course, there are both boys and girls living in the house. And soon Ten has an admirer, but is it someone that she likes back. And how would a romance work in the house or could it even work? Those are the things as well as high school life that Ten needs to navigate.

General Thoughts

This is a different manga that most that I’ve read before. I have read some things and watched some that lean into the romance element as well. But this one lays itself out in an interesting way. Mainly that you don’t always know who is talking. The voice bubbles are not always lined up, and this feels like it is done so that they can create this sense of confusion of flustered feeling that Ten has at times. As the reader it is meant for us to feel as confused as she does in that moment.

I also like to mention fan service here, if there is any. And while there is romance and characters kiss, and that is the whole thing that drives the story. I won’t way who kisses who, there are a lot of characters in the house, but there is not fan service. It is written that so that it’s primary audience is going to be female which means that the standard fan service is not going to increase an audience.

What Doesn’t Work?

The books are not all consistent. By that I mean in the 2nd book, it is almost worth putting down. There is a character introduced that is just not interesting and the story that you care about from the first book does not progress. It nearly killed the series, but we’d enjoyed the first book enough that I had bought more than just the 2nd. If I had only bought one I’m not sure I’d have continued.

I also think that while the voice being confused makes some sense thematically for the story, it is not the most effective story telling element. The issue is that sometimes while reading it you can’t figure it out and it takes a panel or two to put it together. Again, that is thematic in what it is doing, but it’d work better if it was a disconnected voice that as you read it you could connect it.

What Works?

Aesthetically this is one of the better looking manga that I’ve read. It calls back previous panels and conversations in a really nice way. And the character artwork is very well done. The focus is very much on the characters and the background generally falls away. You need the characters to look good in this for the story to work because there are no grand set pieces.

The romance works well, as well. And I won’t go into it too much as to not spoil anything. But it is done pretty simply without many grand gestures or anything like that. There are some moments that happen that stretch out the whole will they won’t they element. And there is a love triangle at one point in time. That is not always handled the best, but I generally think that it works.

Who Is It For?

Like I said, this is written primarily for a female audience. That said, it can stand on it’s own. I would say that there will be an element where you need to push past that 2nd collection but beyond that, it is better. If romance manga interests you at all, I think this is one of the better ones, at least from what I’ve come across. It doesn’t delve into too much drama, and it feels good to read it, so maybe even if it’s out of your normal style, give it a read.

Final Thoughts – Shortcake Cake

This is a lot of fun, and there are a total of 12 so it is not too long. Shortcake Cake doesn’t make me immediately want to go out and seek more romance manga. But it also is not turning me off from it. In fact, if my wife finds more that she wants to checkout, I’ll read them as well.

I am curious as to what others will think of the main characters. I know with the love triangle, I didn’t have as much issue with the third person. Now, it is not who you might think if you read book two. So there is some room for how you enjoy the series. Not saying that there is ever really a wrong way. It is just interesting to see how my wife and I might differ on opinions, somewhat, on the characters.

Have you read Shortcake Cake? What did you think of it, or what are your favorite romance anime or manga?

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