How to Play Biblios

Biblios is played out over two phases. The first phase is the gift giving phase. In that, a player takes cards off of the deck one at a time. With each card they decide to add it either to their collection, an auction collection, or face up for the other players. Once they have done that for number of players plus one, doing each action once, or once per other player, the other players take face up cards in turn order. You go through all of the cards in the deck that time. This builds up the players hands.

There are three types of cards that you might get. Firstly there is money, that is used in phase two. Next up item cards, stuff for building out your library, that is for area control or area majority in the different colors. Finally there are churches. Those influence the value on the dice. The dice are victory points, all starting at three, for each area, color, of item. And the churches increase or decrease the value.

The next phase, is the auction phase. So all the cards that go into the auction pile are auctioned off one at a time with going around to different players leading the auction. If it is an item card or a church card you use money to bid. If it is a money card in the auction pile, you bid a number of cards to get it.

Then, after all that is done, all gifts given and cards auctioned, you check for majorities. The value on the cards totaled for each color determines who wins that color. Players take the die of the color that they won, and you add up the total on all the dice. Scoring at the end is fairly simple.

What I Don’t Like

One thing that is a neutral item for me, but I think is just okay is the giving of gifts. Now, the concept is very interesting. When do you pass on something good, maybe putting it into the auction pile, in hopes something better shows up? That is cool, and I’ll talk about that more. But there are a number of cards to go through, so the giving of gifts just takes a little bit. And the interest of it wains a bit over time.

I also think that the scoring might be a little bit too simple, or more the strategy for it. Now, with more players and a few cards out of the deck every game, it does mean you can’t math it out. I think the more i play it though, I’ll find that I want to be a bit more cutthroat with the game. Buying up cards that others might want or messing with the dice more. I just want something more for scoring, like a bonus of 3 points for the player with the most item cards, something like that. Or a point for every three coins left after the auction.

What I Like

On the flip side, I do like the gift giving part with the push your luck element. What card works be the best for you. At what point in time do you maybe throw away into the auction a really good card because you don’t want it, but you also don’t want to give it to someone for free. But once you do that, now you don’t have the ability to hide an even better card. It makes an interesting choice like in Grimm Masquerade, just more of it.

I also think that the auction is good. Mainly because different cards auction different ways. I like that you can put good coins into the pool, so a 3 coin shows up, I might bid two or three cards, maybe even four, to just get rid of cards for an item I won’t win. Or to get rid of 1 coins. But there is risk with getting ride of 1 coins because if you bid a 2 coin and only have a 3, you pay with the 3 and get no change.

Finally, I like that all the cards aren’t in the deck. Even at the max player count, some are still out though not many. That means that you can’t count cards, though it’d be impossible to get everything figure out. In a two player game, if no cards were out, you could count it all I guess during the auction phase easily enough.

Who Is It For?

Who is this for, probably anyone. The game is very simple when you get down to it. I could take this to my parents and get them playing it fast. And I think that while it is light, for heavier gamers it is going to make a good filler. Even for more casual players, this is a filler weight and length game.

Now, I talked that it takes a while to get all of the gifts out. It isn’t that it takes that long, really, it is more that it loses some of the interest as you go. After going through cards and picking how to disperse them, some players might flag on that a little bit. But then the game is so fast moving that it’ll get to the auction quickly.

It is also best at three players. So a good game for that play with parents sort of situation. Two and four are solid, but three is the sweet spot for me.

Biblios Final Thoughts

Biblios is a great little filler game. For me it worked quite well, even with the bit of slowness. It helps that not on your turn, you still get a card. That means you care what the other player(s) put down. And I like it with three because now two cards are out for the players. If you pick first, I hope you leave what I want. It creates a bit of tension that the game doesn’t have a ton of.

I do worry, though, about the staying power of the game. Is it going to go like Tsuro where I played it enough times that I moved on from it? I think that it might just after enough plays. Now, I am no where near that, and it is a lower player count. That means that I won’t use it as a filler as much as Tsuro, Criss Cross, or Second Chance.

There are also elements that remind me of Arboretum where only one person scores a color. However, Arboretum has more puzzling out what to do. And I think it is meaner because you know what everyone else has, or is at least going for, on the table. Biblios scratches some of that same itch while being much more accessible. And also less mean than Arboretum because of that.

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

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I think that most board gamers start out going wide with their collection and then eventually move more towards going deep. But we should probably start off with what wide and deep mean.

A Wide Collection

A wide collection is when you have a wide variety of games. The collection doesn’t have to be huge, but it is all over the map because you are learning what you like to play. This means that you have party games, story games, gateway games, classic games, euro games, and amerithrash games. And really, you have everything in between as well.

When you go out to buy a board game, you don’t think so much about how much you’ll like the game versus how cool a game looks. Now, those two might be the same thing, but with looking at a box cover, you’re less likely to know how a game will paly as you start your collection. So you look at games that look different from what you have.

A Deep Collection

A deep collection is when you know what you like in a board game. And you buy fewer random games, but are more apt to pick up an expansion for something you have. You look at the back of a box and you know how a game plays. And you know if that game is for you or not. So a deep collection might be deep in the euro games that it has, or amerithrash games.

What it won’t have is the variety of different genres of games. It might have some, just so you can play a party game with a non-gamer, or a really nice looking euro game in your amerithrash collection. But more likely it’ll have a lot of games of similar types and expansions for those games. So more of what you already like.

Why Does It Change?

Well, it changes because I know what I like And you will grow to know what you like as well, if you’re early in the hobby. And that is a good thing. Why, it means that you tend to buy less duds. Some games just won’t work for you. And that is true for every gamer. There are going to be people who like those games and some who don’t, and just because people do doesn’t mean you will.

For me, something like Brass: Birmingham. That is a heavy euro game, maybe not the heaviest, but heavier. With my taste in games, I know I wouldn’t buy it. It isn’t that I wouldn’t play it, but as a type of game, it isn’t going to fit in my collection. I look at my collection and there are other games I’d play before it, all the time. Why, because I’m not a big euro gamer, I know that about myself.

But, there are people who are big euro game fans. So they probably wouldn’t put something like Reichbusters in their collection. So while Reichbusters is a solid investment for me, it isn’t for them. And I also know that with Aeon’s End, for example, I like it enough that I want expansions for it. So I have all of it. It means my collection could be more diverse and have more games, but I know I like what I have.

Is Either Better?

I think some would argue for both. A wide collection means you have more variety of games to play with more people. However, if you don’t love those games, do you really want to play them? It’s a bit of a pickle that you can get stuck in, having games to have the variety but never playing those outside of what you really like. On the flip side, if you only have what you really like, you need to have a group that likes the same things. It limits who you can play a game with.

I also think that it’s important to go through the stages. If you are just getting into the hobby and find that you like deck building games, let’s say Dominion in particular. You could go deep, you could get everything for Dominion, and there’s a lot to get. That would be a deep Dominion collection. But it is also not aiding you in if you like more or other types of games. Now, maybe you have a game store that you can play other games at, so you get exposure that way. But for a lot of people they don’t have that option and they are the supplier of games for their group.

Final Thoughts

Two things for final thoughts, one, is that it’s fine to spend as much or as little time as you need in both areas. Because I think that you do bounce back and forth over time some. But don’t feel like you need to rush to figure out what you love. That could take months or years to get that figured out.

Secondly, if you know what you like, don’t use that to limit what you’ll try. I think there are times gamers get into a gaming rut. All amerithrash games are bad, all euro games have no theme, if a game have take that at all in it are trash. Most might not be your type of game, but because a game looks one way doesn’t mean that it is.

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Why Talk About Changing Tastes?

I talk about that some in my article of Filler, Family Weight, and Other Board Game Classifications. The simplest way to put it is that as you game more your tastes will change. For a lot of board gamers, games like Munchkin, Fluxx, Ticket To Ride, Carcassonne, and Catan were the games that got them into the hobby board game areas. Before that, they were playing games like Uno, Skip-Bo, Monopoly, Phase 10, Clue, and Scrabble.

I think that’s a pretty common journey. It starts with playing those classic games that we grew up with, or our parents grew up with. Then when games like Catan came around, I at least had a friend who introduced me to that and then later Ticket to Ride. But now I don’t have Catan in my collection anymore, and Ticket to Ride rarely gets played. What changed or why did things change?

Why Do Tastes Change?

I think that everyone grows and changes in almost everything. I’m not sure if there is anything that people can’t change from. And I think board games show one way and an often way that people do change. Some people will always stick with a more basic game, they have found the level that they like. They want to play the classic games, and that is totally fine. But for myself and others into hobby board games, I think it’s important to remember the journey and how we can help people along that journey.

So I’m going to talk about two games that helped draw me into the hobby and probably did for a lot of people, Fluxx and Munchkin. I could talk about Catan, but I think that Fluxx and Munchkin explain it well. Both of those games are light card games that have you trying to mess over your opponents, take their stuff or stop them from winning. Now, this should sound familiar. That is basically how Uno works. You are trying to stop your opponents from winning as much as you are planning on your own victory itself. Or the game Sorry, you want to stop them from winning.

Why did we stop playing Sorry and Uno for Fluxx and Munchkin?

We stopped playing them, because Fluxx and Munchkin offered more in way of the game. When you play Fluxx , you are creating and changing the rules to the game. Sure it’s very simple draw one card and play one card, unless the rules say otherwise. In Munckin you are trying to make your character stronger to defeat more monsters and your opponent weaker or their monsters stronger, so that they can’t. There is more to think about with your card play.

Both of those games take something that we know and build upon it. They add more to the rules of the game, barely, and they offer more choices. To go back to Catan, I sometimes say that if someone like’s Monopoly they should try Catan. Why, because some of the pieces feel similar, but the game offers more choices. Now that’s a bigger jump than Uno to Fluxx, but it’s about finding stepping stones.

Why did we stop playing Fluxx and Munckin?

And this is a cycle that for hobby gamers repeats fairly often. I stopped playing Fluxx and Munchkin, though I still have both, because I wanted games that gave me more choices yet again. One thing that I find is that the more games I play the less true randomness I want in it.

Sure Tainted Grail might have a random encounter or unexpected outcome in an exploration, but I still make more choices. I play down all the cards for combat. Gloomhaven has a deck AI for the monsters, that is random, but I can plan out what I do and have knowledge on what the monsters might be doing. There is no, will I or won’t I draw the right card, because there isn’t a truly right card. It is how can I make what I have available to me work the best.

This is true for most all the games I play now. Some are smaller and more random, like Claim, but even that is less random and offers more choice than some other trick taking games. And it is an extremely light and fast two player filler game. While Fluxx and Munchkin might be light, they take longer than a filler. When I want that lighter, fluffier game, I want it to be played fast now.

What Do We Learn From Changing Tastes?

To start, I think it’s important to remember that our tastes have changed. They might change again, and those we play with, their tastes might change as well. There can be a disparity between gamers. Those of us who love those heavier games and those who love the lighter or more traditional games. It is easy at times to forget that we started there with more traditional games as well.

Even if you are starting now with a game like Horrified and Pandemic which are more on the hobby side of gaming, you will still have a progression to your gaming. You might not like those games as well in the future because you’ve mined them for what they have and now you want more. And we don’t want to forget, because when we forget, that is when we stop bringing people into the hobby.

And that really is my main point. I know I talked about this as well. When you think about your changing tastes over time, it comes into play with bringing people into the hobby. I am in a bunch of board game groups on Facebook, and I know I wrote an article based off of what I saw in those groups. I can’t find it right now, but let me recap.

The Scenario

A new person to the hobby side of board gaming joins one of these groups. They are all excited because they just got Cards Against Humanity, their group loves Munchkin and Catan, and they want to know what game they should get next.

The first two responses are:
“Those games suck.”
“Scythe”

What’s Wrong With This?

Well, there are a lot of obvious things wrong with it, and I know it’ll stand out to most people. Even the people who commented those things, stepping back and looking at it objectively and not in the moment can spot what is wrong. The first one doesn’t answer the questions and belittles the person who is excited about board games for their choice in board games.

The second one is a bit harder to see. Scythe might be a great game, it is on my to play list. But Scythe is a big euro style game that is a massive step up from something like Munchkin, Cards Against Humanity and Catan. That answer might intimidate a new gamer out of the hobby or make them feel dumb because they don’t understand the game. The Scythe recommendation is like giving someone a calculus test after they’ve just learned their multiplication tables, it’s too big a gap.

Both of these answers, the people writing them have forgotten their journey. They don’t remember how their tastes changed over time. And I get it, they are passionate about loving Scythe or wanting people to play what they find to be better games. But for almost every gamer, there is a journey.

So How Do We Be Better?

Staying on my scenario, I think that there are two better responses, though one of them is actually not responding. To paraphrase Thumper from Bambi, if you can’t say anything nice, be quiet. Now that doesn’t apply to every situation, but for someone excited about board games and on their journey, however deep it leads them into the hobby, be nice. So if you can’t be nice, be quiet.

Or, pause, think about your journey. Think about two types of games for the person who asks that question. The first is, when you were playing games like Catan and Munchkin, what other games were you playing? Secondly, what were the games that helped you take the next step? Then give two pieces of advice on what to get next. One for that point in time the person is in, and one for what might be a next step. Then explain why for both of them.

We really can use our knowledge to encourage people along their journey. I know that I want more people to play board games with, and I’m not facing a shortage. Games get played almost every Tuesday and Wednesday. I had people over to game on Saturday for a game night, I’ll have people over this Saturday, and I still want to play more games. And from that amount of gaming, I still want to play more.

But I know that I need to be careful not to push too far with my passion for people I don’t know are as passionate about board games. I want to give everyone them as gifts or to play games with non-gamers. That is amazing when I can and they love them or like them. But I shouldn’t pull Terraforming Mars off the shelf with a new gamer.

What Were the Board Games on Your Journey?

So, a little exercise for myself and everyone else. What has your board game journey looked like? What were the points where you paused and grew as a gamer?

For me:
Growing up: Uno, Skip-Bo, Dutch Blitz and the like were very common and got me into the idea of gaming.
Around End of High School: Got introduced to the modern classics of Ticket to Ride and Catan and dove into those.
Post College: Got into Magic the Gathering and introduced to more games like Dominion and Power Grid
First Board Game I Loved: Betrayal At House on the Hill, this really got me into board gaming and buying board games

Since then it’s been a slow and steady trying of different games and growing. Probably should say the final stop I can think of was about 3 years ago when we started playing Gloomhaven and I feel in love with the blended mechanics of Amerithrash and Euro as well as I fell in love with campaign games.

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In Second Chance, everyone is getting their own unique starting shape which they have to fill in on the center of their grid. After that, two shapes are flipped which players then get to pick one and add it to their grid, touching a previous one. This continues until someone can’t put one of the shapes on their grid. A card is flipped for only them, giving them a second chance. If they can’t use that, they count up how many empty squares they have, and that’s their score. Other players then continue until someone has either filled up their board or until no one can play a shape. At that point in time, everyone counts up the number of empty spots they have, and the person with the fewest remaining open spots wins.

Second Chance is technically a flip and write, but it falls into the genre. And it falls into a nice spot where people who aren’t board gamers can pick it up quickly. Most people are familiar with the concept of Tetris, and this game has a bit of that feel to it as you try and optimally place shapes. That helps get this game to the table a lot and helps get multiple plays in of the game. The game also plays fast, so that helps keep the non-board gamers attention as well.

As compared to some other games in the roll and write games, Welcome To…, Cartographers, or Cat Cafe, Second Chance is a bit of a simpler game. The strategy of the game basically surrounds deciding if you want to go early with larger shapes in hopes that the smaller ones needed to fill it in will show up later. But that’s a bit more luck based than anything. Now, that’s not much of a knock on the game. It’s 100% a filler game and while there are times that I want to play a bit more strategic roll and write game, the fact that Second Chance can play a larger number of people as well works nicely.

But that is also a knock on the game. I think that it’s very much targeted for the casual gamer, and while that’s great, it isn’t one that gamers who like those heavier decisions are going to love for as long a time as a casual gamer. The tactics are light, the interaction doesn’t exist, and while that’s perfect for that introductory style game, it will feel like you’re doing something similar over and over again the more that you play it. For me, I haven’t found this to be an issue, as I do like a fair number of lighter games, but I can see how it could be. The other thing that helps keep the game from feeling like there isn’t enough going on, is that the game is fast. Once you know how to play, you can play in ten to fifteen minutes. The game definitely doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, even with playing a couple of games in a sitting.

Overall, this is a roll and write (or flip and write) game that I really do enjoy. I personally like some of the bigger roll and write games better, but Second Chance, because it plays so fast and you can play it with almost anyone, because it’s so simple, has a spot on my shelf. It’s one that I can take to a family gathering, or that I can pull out at board game night and get rolling (flipping) in a few minutes without any questions once the rules are taught. If you are looking for that light weight roll and write game, Second Chance is a great choice.

Overall Grade: B+
Casual Grade: A+
Gamer Grade: C

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It’s a Classy Game

By that (as you’ll know if you’ve been following along with my D&D posts recently), I mean that you get to play a character class, and eventually you unlock so many more. We have a three-player game, and we got to pick the classes we wanted just based off their names. And while there are things that correlate to some standard classes — for example, the Brute is pretty obviously a fighter of some sort — they don’t follow typical fantasy naming conventions. For example, I’m playing a Tinkerer. That doesn’t really have a connection to any Dungeons & Dragons class, and while you certainly have an idea of what that character might do, it isn’t standard for your typical fantasy game tropes. What works even better for the classes is that each of them have multiple things that feel unique about them. As you level them up, you can modify your own unique attack modifier deck, so two people playing different classes can choose to modify theirs in different ways. Beyond that, your attack deck is uniquely yours. As the Tinkerer, a lot of my actions can be used at range, and I can create/summon a construct to help soak up damage. The Scoundrel, by comparison, has a deck that allows them to go much faster and to deal out large chunks of damage, up close and personal-like.

Secrets, Secrets

Gloomhaven is a game that has a number of secrets in it. Another thing that makes your character feel unique is that they have their own secrets. There are two areas that you have a secret, generally, the first being your character’s reason for adventuring. I’m not going to spoil any of those, but when you create your character, you draw two secret objectives and pick one. This really informs some of your decision-making in terms of what you might do in combat or how you might deal with a road encounter or city encounter. That is another way each character has a unique feel, and it’s also the timer for how long you’re going to play your character. Once they complete that secret objective, they retire when you go back to town, and you get to play another character and probably unlock yet another one. That way, you feel like your initial decision isn’t as tough, because it doesn’t lock you into being that single character for the whole game. It also means that as you grow attached to and familiar with your character, it’ll be sad when they retire. You also get a secret in each scenario. These are things you want to do (or don’t want to do) in combat that, if you can go the whole scenario without doing them, you get a reward for it, which is building toward upgrading your character. It might be that you want to collect as much loot as possible, which won’t help your party, but don’t worry — eventually someone else will have that card and look like the bad guy.

How Many is Too Many?

One thing I did want to address that is a bit of a negative is how the game scales with player count. The box says that a scenario probably can take 30 minutes per player in the game. So with 3 players, it should be about an hour and a half, and I think that’s pretty accurate. I’m also not sure that I’d want to try it with four players. Four players seems like it would be a bit longer per scenario, but there is a bigger reason, as well, which is that combat would become too random with four players. When you have four players, the person who is last in initiative order wouldn’t be able to plan anything. When you have three, the last person to go still has to change up their plans, but you don’t have to all the time. I think two players would be quite strategic and way less random, so I currently really like the three-player count, as it does make it not a completely strategic game. I do think that a lot of people might find that frustrating, but you can negate that, if you do find it frustrating, with a lower player count.

All the Things

This is a positive and a negative — or maybe it’s just something to be aware of. This game has all the pieces in the world, possibly literally. There are thousands of cards and thousands of cardboard pieces. And the box is huge! These things allows the game to be really diverse and feel epic, but at the same time, it’s a lot of moving/sorting/housekeeping. The design makes it pretty smooth, but without figuring out a way to organize everything, it would be a complete cluster. I’ve used envelopes to sort monsters out, large manila envelopes to sort the terrain, and a jewelry/bead case to sort even more of the tokens. And I’m hoping I’ve sorted the cards well enough, but I can’t sort them as finely as I’d like. There are certainly inserts that you could consider getting, but the cheapest I’ve found, after shipping, is $70. So if you’ve already spent $140 on the game (I got it through Kickstarter for $100), that takes the cost of the game over $200. Now, it is a game that can get you 100 hours or so of gameplay without really repeating anything or starting it over again, so if you have three players and you spend $200 on it, that’s not much per person per hour, but it is still a big investment, and I wish that it came with a way to sort it better. But for everything you’re getting and with the way it’s packed, I understand why not.

This isn’t my final review of the game; just my opening thoughts on it. Gloomhaven is a really fun game, and I don’t think it’s exceedingly hard to learn. However, there is a good amount to know and look up as you play. After playing it last night, we were already talking about finding a Saturday when we can play for hours instead of just getting through one scenario. This game, if you have a group, is worth the money for it — even if you’re a solo gamer, there are options for that that would probably be worth it. Just save up for it, and probably save up for an organizer to go with it.

Initial Grade: A+
Gamer Grade: A+
Casual Grade: B+ (I do think it would be probably too intimidating for a lot of casual gamers, but it isn’t too hard to wrap your head around)

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