Campaign Game Expectations

Branching Narrative

Let’s start out with story. I want a good narrative and I want a branching narrative in a game. Now, this doesn’t mean I need 10 different endings. Though I appreciate what Tainted Grail does, giving a lot of different end game moments. But I’m fine with just a story that gives me choices in what I do. The illusion of branching narrative.

What I mean by the illusion is that I can make a choice and that’ll change how something goes. It might make a few scenarios different. But the main story beats, I’m going to end up there no matter what. So do the decisions I make matter? Yes, for how the story is shaped and told to me, but where I’m going to end up not really. But there needs to be real, meaningful feeling decisions.

Tainted Grail does a good job of this, Stars of Akarios, you end up on a planet and can choose to go many ways. Gloomhaven, the story is much more linear throughout. In a few spots, it does branch but only changes stuff in a minor way. Sword and Sorcery, about once per box would you have a decision to make. Clearly there are other stuff that determine how much I like a game than just story. But now, I expect more from story because companies are doing more.

Storage Solution

I didn’t put these in any order, but this might be number one. I want a campaign game to come with a storage solution. And not just any storage solution. Sleeping Gods gives you baggies to save your game. That is not a storage solution that I’m talking about. Though, it’s better than not having the baggies.

What I am talking about is something that makes it easier to play and faster to the table. Gloomhaven I had to buy an insert for that. Sword and Sorcery it doesn’t have that at all. But Tainted Grail allows you to save characters and locations in an okay system. But when I look at good, I look at my Gloomhaven insert or Stars of Akarios.

I want to be able to pull out a whole tray of tokens and that that on the table. I don’t need to worry about getting them to the right spot or within reach. There is just a tray for that, and for the cards. And, ideally, you can have all your character stuff in a single spot. Make it easy as possible on me to get it back to the table. Yes, it is still a big game, but you can make it easier.

Scaling – Player Count and Difficulty

This one might not be the most obvious, but at times some games require you to play with four characters. Sleeping Gods you play with 9 characters plus the Captain, I believe. Now, you activate as the whole crew, but for a lot of people that is a lot. I always saw it just as a turn and knowing my abilities. But I totally get why it would be a lot.

And it isn’t just how many characters you control, it is how many monsters you control and how hard they are. Gloomhaven is a great example of this. The fewer players that you have, the fewer monsters there are on the board. But if a scenario is too easy or too hard, you can lower or raise the difficulty. That is great.

Now, sometimes games do need or expect four characters. So some games handle that in different ways. Oathsworn they are allies who activate on a simpler system in combat. That way you only need to think about a character or two. For Middara, they kind of slot in with another character. So think of lending health or stuff like that. Bad guys don’t change, but your heroes get stronger with fewer.

Interesting Mechanics

Interesting is a relative term. I think I mean that I want a mechanic that feels different or feels unique to the game. Stars of Akarios gave me unique tactical space dog fights. Gloomhaven has the dual use cards with the top and bottom. Tainted Grail leans into the exploration and survival, but also has the chaining combat system. Each of those feels different.

What I don’t really want is to only grab a handful of dice with an ability card and roll to see if I activate it. Now, something like Oathsworn has an element of that, you just grab dice and roll them. But it offers more than that, the card play and the battle flow system are unique. And the grabbing of dice is a push your luck element.

I hope it doesn’t come across that I don’t like rolling dice, rolling a handful of dice is satisfying. But if that is your mechanic, or main mechanic, that is old at this point. Sword and Sorcery, for example, mainly has your activating a card which tells you what dice to roll, and you can take actions to add dice. It’s why over time Sword and Sorcery has slipped so much for me.

Good Character Progression

Finally, I want good character progression. And this is also in two ways. Kind of like the scaling can be done in two ways. But I want good character progression where I get to know more about the character. This isn’t a must, but it is appreciated. Awaken Realms often has this as an add-on to their games. Echoes of the Past is that for Tainted Grail. You complete objectives, you get to read story about the horrible past your character has had.

It doesn’t need to be as blatantly obvious as that. But also in Tainted Grail, you find certain things that only a given character can do. Generally there are other ways to do them, but it’s easier for that character. And you find out more details about that characters past that way, or story, and it feels good to have something unique for that character.

But I also want to level up my characters fairly often. And leveling up can slow down as time goes on. But within the first few sessions I should get something new. I want to feel like my character is doing better and is stronger in the game. Generally this is more mechanical. For Gloomhaven, it’s less XP to level up early levels. For Tainted Grail, it’s chapters early on giving you things you’d normally spend XP for.

Final Thoughts

Now, this list probably isn’t everything that I want. Personally, I would love voice narration and app assistance for most any game. This goes back to the ease of play I talk about with an insert. That makes it easier to play and get to the table. But not flipping through a book also makes it easier and simpler to play.

So I want that for more games, but I don’t know that it is needed for every game. At least narration so I don’t have to read large swathes of text. But it’s also important that it’s done well. Don’t just have the designer of the game, or a random friend, read it, it needs to be well done. And same with the app, the app needs to be well designed as well, because a bad app can hurt ease of play if not careful.

What, to you are the important things to get you interested in a campaign game? What is often the biggest barrier for you to getting a campaign game to the table?

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The question is, what can make a game stand out, and how much does a game need to stand out?

Does Your Board Game Need to Stand Out?

The answer in my opinion is that it does. Though standing out can mean a number of different things. You need a game that immediately catches your eye with the box. This could be bright and flashy, or it could match the type of game that people expect for it. Euro games often don’t have the most striking boxes, but you know what is in them.

But generally, you want something that stands out on a shelf. If you can get someone to pick your game up off the shelf and look at the back, that is step one. And that might be enough to get a number of sales for the game.

The next part of this question is do you need to stand out with game play and components, and what does that even mean? The short answer, as we’ll dive into what it means coming up, is that maybe you need to stand out. Not all games need to stand out, but you need to match the standards expected. Beyond that, you can certainly help your game with both of those.

What Can Make Your Game Stand Out?

Theme

For me the first thing that I think of is theme. If your theme is different, not only will the box probably catch my eye, but also it’ll keep me around to see how that game works. But it isn’t just that, it is also for more standard themes. If you do a fantasy game, how do you not fall into the trope of fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric? Or if you are doing a space game, how is it not Star Wars?

Examples

First Rat

First Rat never would have caught my attention except for the theme. And even then, with the company the game is coming from, I have nothing really against them but their games don’t catch my attention, I wouldn’t have been that interested. But the theme of a rat building a rocket ship to go to the moon meant that I’d be willing to try it.

And I am glad that I did, but that’s not really the point. The point is that you took a game with basically some resource gathering and victory points and put a weird theme on it. And when I got into the mechanics, I realized that I really enjoyed the game. The theme definitely helps. If this were just pushing up a track to get resources to trade at a Medieval market, I would be less interested.

Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven is an example of a theme that is pretty common. It is fantasy. But Isaac Childres built a world that is completely unique to Gloomhaven. The characters are all different and it feels like no fantasy that has been done before.

But it also doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be that. Let me give an example, theoretical, of how this works. It has characters who can heal, but they aren’t the cleric. It has better tanks, but they aren’t a barbarian for a fighter. Each of them does something that feels different than your classic D&D tropes. And it does that without making itself too confusing or convoluted. A lot of fantasy games go with grand fantasy names and a backstory that doesn’t matter that much.

ISS Vanguard

ISS Vanguard is a game that actually isn’t in my hands yet. It will be soon, but it isn’t yet. This does fall into that epic space game. But it isn’t so much the good versus evil that you end up with in Star Wars. It probably is closer to a Star Trek where there is more exploration.

But what feels different about this one is that exploration. You travel throughout this galaxy or area that you’ve decoded a signal to. The call is making you want to know more, but the directions are less clear. ISS Vanguard is all about exploring space and figuring out everything that is going on. Plus maintaining your ship, keeping crew happy, everything like that as well.

Etherfields

Etherfields is very much a world that is completely different than anything out there. A world where you dive into your dreams and nightmares and are exploring. This would again fall under fantasy, but in such a different way than your standard high fantasy settings or epic fantasy settings like Lord of the Rings.

Etherfields pivots a long ways away from the standard which I think is good. It is going to draw people in because it feels completely different. It doesn’t need to walk that line of fantasy that we know and the fantasy that it is. Being it’s own thing so completely means that it doesn’t need to build off of anything that we know.

Components

Components are another way that you can stand out. This could be a mountain of plastic minis, it could be amazing nature artwork, it could be a volcano. Whatever it is, when you flip over to the back of the box and see it, it catches your eyes. Some of these fall into the next category, the Gimmick, so I’ll talk about those then. But there are plenty of games that stand out because of the pieces that they have in the game.

Examples

Wingspan

Wingspan is an easy one to put on the list. Firstly, there is all of the amazing artwork. This is an example of a cover that immediately draws you in. But going along with that, it isn’t just on the cover. All the cards show off Beth Sobel’s artwork. And all of the birds are different, so there is a ton of artwork. Then you add in the eggs and the bird house dice tower. The game gives you great components.

Century: Golem Edition

Century: Golem Edition is another one that gives you amazing components. I wanted to come up with a game that has metal coins in the box, and Century does. And I could talk about the artwork here as well. But the artwork isn’t the other component that immediately draws you in. In Century Golem Edition you are collecting games. And the game pieces are vibrant and fun tactilely to play with. Collecting those and trading them around really makes the game stand out.

Marvel United

Finally, I mentioned minis, so if you want a game with a lot of minis, Marvel United is a way to go, especially if you backed the Kickstarter. Chibi minis might not be everyone’s style, but I enjoy them. And I think for a light, family weight, easily accessible board game, they work great. So if you get everything, you can play as whatever hero you want. And for a fan of the IP, that is easy for me to want them all.

Mechanics

Let’s not overlook mechanics. There are a number of games that come out with a mechanic that just feels different. Some of these again border on gimmick, but they are important to the game, and generally not the only game that uses them. But a slight twist on a mechanic can make a game stand out.

Examples

Cartographers

Cartographers does two things that I think make it unique for a roll and write game. The first is not totally unique to it. But the idea of how it scores. You score two things for spring, then one of those things and a new thing for summer. But when you get back to winter, you score one of your objectives from sprint again. So you kind of plan out your scoring a little bit as you go. And not everything scores every round. But also, you write on your opponents board as well as your own. When a monster comes out, you figure out the bad spot where to place it.

Gloom

Gloom is another example of two things, neither which is highly unique, but still are enjoyable. In Gloom you try for the fewest points possible. That is fairly unique. You want your family to die the worst deaths with the most negative points possible. Gloom also uses transparent cards. So you layer on these negative effects on your own or positive on your opponents. You still see your character through the cards, and the negatives that you’ve played before. Other games do this, but I enjoy it a lot in Gloom.

Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven makes the list in a couple of different categories. But for mechanics, it’s all about that card play that you do. You pick two cards to play. One you will use the top half, generally an attack. The other you will use the bottom half, generally movement. But you want to pick with flexibility. Because the situation at the start of a round, as monsters and other players go, might not be the same at the end of the round. Plus, it is just a dungeon crawl without chucking a handful of dice.

Gimmick

Another way is by a gimmick, and this is kind of the last one. Gimmicks in board games can be great, or they can hide the fact that there might not be much game there. So a gimmick can be a bit of a risk. There are three games I can think of passing on because I wasn’t sure about the gimmick in them. Two haven’t fulfilled yet from crowdfunding. The other one I backed the second time it was on there.

Examples

Canvas

Canvas uses that clear cards, something that I put in as a mechanic. But it is also a gimmick, one that is needed for some games. In Canvas, it is needed for the mechanics of the game as you try and layer symbols to complete pictures and score points. It also creates really wild pieces of artwork which counts for a lot as well. At least in terms of the fun of the game.

Potion Explosion

Position explosion on the other hand is really a toy piece in the game. A little chute that drops marbles down into a tray in different columns or paths. Then you pull out the marbles trying to get like colors to hit and collect those. And you put them on potions to make those positions. The whole thing of the game is there there is toy factor, but the game has a lot of fun game play as you combo potions you’ve made into being able to complete more potions.

Ice Cool

I probably could have put only dexterity based games on the list, but that isn’t fair. By their nature they tend to have more of a gimmick and more of that toy factor to them. Ice Cool, though, really stands out as having a gimmick to it because the boxes are the board. You take off the lid and there are more boxes inside. You put them together in such a way that you have a school. It is unique and fun.

Final Thoughts

Anything you can do to get a game noticed is probably not a bad thing. Though, some companies take it too far. It is important to put out a game first. But there are things that can be done, sometimes that are ignored, to make a game stand out more. And get more people to pick it up off a shelf to try and play it. That is really the most important first step is getting it in front of the people who will be interested.

What are some things that have made a game stand out to you? Any games that had the perfect packaging but then were a dud?

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The Game – Sleeping Gods

Story without a direct focus is what we’re going to talk about today. And I’ll describe what I mean by that. This story can be explored in almost any order. New avenues will open up if you have keywords, but you can go anywhere and just explore. That is part of the game.

The question is, is that a good part of the game. I have played other games that do this, Near and Far as well as Seafall, and it can be a problem. In Near and Far, the little vignettes were fun, but the story overall for the game felt like it was lacking. The glimpses I got into the world made me want to explore it more, but also didn’t help me care that much about it. Especially in a mechanically driven game.

Seafall also tried to do little vignettes into the world. However, most of them were so generic that it felt like it really didn’t matter. And because they wanted to add reveals into the story, we actually, but poor luck, got a reveal of some of the mystery after the bigger reveal had happened. So the story that was there came out of order.

Now, this all sounds pretty negative. And I totally get that, I do often have issues with story written like that. But in the case of both Near and Far and Seafall, the story was treated as secondary. The mechanics going on were what drove the game, and the story felt more like an afterthought. I don’t believe it was, but that is how it felt. In Sleeping Gods, that isn’t the case, the game is about the story.

Mechanically, Sleeping Gods is still very sound. But the story is what drives the choices you make and what you do, not the mechanics. And that is why Sleeping Gods works as a game with story vignettes. Exploring the world is how you beat the game. Exploring the story is how you beat the game. Not by having the most points to trigger then end, as in Seafall, or get rid of all your tents in Near and Far.

Hopefully that distinction makes sense. Sleeping Gods is so driven by the story that I want to explore that. The mechanics are there to make it a game, but exploring the world and that story is what the game is about. And even if it’s not a grand epic fantasy story told in a normal format, it is still great.

The Drink

Last nights drink wasn’t anything too fancy. I went with a Mojito. The mixer part was in fact from a mix, which I generally don’t do, but I picked some up to try a while ago.

When I pick up alcohol for a mixed drink, I don’t think about it for that purpose. If I’m not willing to sip on the liquor, I’m not likely to buy it. The idea kind of comes from wine. Wine is often used in cooking and there is a mindset that you can get cheap wine for cooking. You aren’t going to drink it, just use it in cooking so why should it be good? But the flavor is what you’re going for, so a less appealing flavor in wine will make your cooking less appealing.

In a mixed drink, if I wouldn’t sip it, that means it’s going to negatively impact the flavor of my drink. Sure, something like Bulleit Bourbon or Whiskey I’m less apt to sip on, but I would. So when I make an Old Fashioned with it, I know the flavor is going to be good.

Upcoming Steaming

So Wednesday’s as always are going to be Sleeping Gods. Subscribe to the channel and click the notification bell to know when we’re going live. But if you don’t want pesky push notifications, I generally don’t, know it’s every Wednesday at 8 PM Central Time.

I honestly don’t know how much of Sleeping Gods is left. With the introductory scenario, I believe I’ve streamed about four and a half hours. So my guess is that I have at least another month to go of game play. But I know what game I’m playing next. Just coming in this week, from Favro Games, Spire’s End. I’ll talk more about it as we get closer to streaming, but it looks like a fun one.

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What Are Adventure Games?

Adventure games are going to be story driven games where you make choices, explore, and maybe even fight monsters. Both Sleeping Gods and Tainted Grail are adventure games in a fantasy setting. But adventure games don’t need to be fantasy. I game I backed on Gamefound, ISS Vanguard, is going to be an adventure game with an emerging story, exploration, and combat, but that is set in space.

In this case, both adventure games are campaign driven. Technically Sleeping Gods isn’t a campaign, but a game takes 10-20 hours on average to play. It is unlikely that anyone will play it all in one sitting. And if you do, that probably means that things went poorly for you. Tainted Grail is a more traditional campaign game where it is split into chapters. But there are adventure games, like Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl that are one off games that would fall into that category, or another game from Red Raven Games, Near and Far can be played like that as well.

Let’s Meet the Adventure Games Contenders

Sleeping Gods

In Sleeping Gods you are the crew of the Manticore, a ship taken to another world. You were brought here to search for a way to awaken the sleeping gods. To do that, you must find totems. But in a new land, you don’t know where anything is. So that means you explore around, talk to the people of the land, and find clues and quests that might lead you to totems. Some of the inhabitants are peaceful though, so you will need to fight.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Tainted Grail is a grim dark retelling of Arthurian legends, where Arthur took the knights of the round table and his people to the land of Avalon. A land that is almost between two worlds or is being held there. However, Arthur is long dead. And things are falling apart. You need to try and hold back the the wyrdness which is threatening to take over the lands again. But do you know enough to be able to do that? And will the people of the lands listen to you?

Compare and Constrast

Story Books

Both of the games use story books as a way of conveying what is happening. When you explore you flip to a certain spot and read the text. In Sleeping Gods, you might be made to go down a path if you do or don’t have a keyword on a card. In Tainted Grail, your path might be set if you are in a certain chapter or do or don’t have a status yet. Both are very similar, but Tainted Grail comes with an app. You do not need to use the app, but if you do, it narrates everything for you.

Combat

Combat is very different between the two. In Sleeping Gods, you play out the monsters in front of you and then activate your crew. The monsters are adjacent to each other. Since they are, that allows you to hit multiple ones at the same time. You do that by picking a crew member to activate and then flipping a card to see if they hit their target.

Tainted Grail, on the other hand, that one is all about card play for combat. You only face off against one opponent at a time. And this isn’t always a combat encounter, sometimes it can be a diplomacy encounter. Then you try and string cards together to defeat the combatant or to resolve the diplomacy.

In both cases, if the combatant is still alive, they will retaliate. Generally that is damage, but it can be a few different things. In Sleeping Gods, the combatants also have an end of round ability for once all the crew have activated. Tainted Grail, it just activates between every characters action.

Story Progression

Let’s talk about story progression before we get into character progression. In the case of Sleeping Gods, the story is just one giant thing. But really it is a lot of little things. There is no break point in your story where the goals change. You never stop to reset to anything new. You just keep going. The closest thing is when you run out of event cards and it gives you something to read.

Tainted Grail, on the flip side, has chapters. You play through one massive story, but the story is split into fifteen different chapters. So as you progress, you goals might change. You start trying to light the Menhir, statues that drive back the wyrdness, and by the end, well, let’s just say that it changes up a lot.

Character Progression

Both games also give you ways to level up your characters in the way of experience to spend. In Tainted Grail, each character gains their experience separately. In Sleeping Gods it is one big pool. Which makes sense because you are playing as the crew.

Another big difference is that Tainted Grail has you leveling up stats and adding cards once you reach a point. Sleeping Gods is basically just giving a character a new ability for leveling up. Don’t get me wrong, the abilities are good, but it is less stat focused than Tainted Grail. So it is less granular in how you can level characters up.

Skill Checks

Finally, we have skill checks. Both of them use them. In Tainted Grail it is rolling a die and then adding in whatever ability you might have. With Sleeping Gods, it is flipping a fate card and adding that to whomever you brought into the skill check. Both of them are similar with about the same level of randomness.

Head to Head Adventure Games Battle

Since I did a board game battle a little bit differently this time, let’s do some comparisons and see if/which any have an advantage in any of the areas that I highlighted. Plus a few more of theme, mechanics, and ease of play.

Story Books

These are very similar. Extremely similar in fact, but right now Tainted Grail will get the nod because of the fact it has an app. Now, I don’t mind reading and reading out loud the story for the stream. I might be doing that even if it was on an app. But for game play and immersion I think that app gives.

Combat

For combat, the advantage definitely goes to Tainted Grail. Both I find interesting, and both I like better than straight die rolling. But I feel like I can be cleverer when playing Tainted Grail. A downside to that, though is that it often takes longer to get through combat. Sleeping Gods, you just pick who you want to attack and go with it.

Story Progression

This one is tougher because both of them progress so differently. Whereas Tainted Grail has a more directed story in what you are doing, how Ryan Laukat and his wife managed to create an open world story is impressive. The whole game of Sleeping Gods feels like it has an arc just from the little direction. For me, I think this one is a draw.

Character Progression

This one is also interesting, but I do have a clear winner. For me, I prefer the Tainted Grail character progression. The more free form character progression with XP spending and level-up cards, it works for Sleeping Gods. Mainly because you play as the whole team not one character. But Tainted Grail really allows you to customize your character over time. I could take a great combat character and make them great a diplomacy by the end if I wanted to.

Skill Checks

This one, like I said, they are similar, but I prefer Sleeping Gods version. Is flipping a card that less random than rolling a die, no, not really But it feels like more control. And I can bring in characters to help and make it more likely to succeed. But doing so is a cost something. And the more you do it, the more it can cost. Versus the simpler version that is Tainted Grail where the additional numbers are basically always on.

Theme

This isn’t going to be that exciting. It is a tie. I love both of the themes a lot. I don’t always want to play in a dark fantasy world, but sometimes I do. So either of them works really well for me. And I think that the theme, because of the heavy story elements, really is there in the game.

Mechanics

This one is trickier. I think that Sleeping Gods mechanics are easier, but I prefer Tainted Grail‘s mechanics. For both fo the games the most mechanically heavy part of the game is the combat. And I prefer Tainted Grail’s combat. In terms of the rest of how the game works, it’s really close. Both of them are very easy to do. Tainted Grail, overall gives you more flexibility in what you can do. You want to explore, move, explore, move, explore some day, you can. For Sleeping Gods, that’s two and a half rounds.

Ease of Play

Another close one, but I do have one that I prefer. I think that Sleeping Gods is a bit easier to play. Both of these are big table hog games. They take time to set-up, they take time to tear down. But with Sleeping Gods there is less to track between sessions of the game. And the storage system is really nice for saving what there characters have. Granted, that’s just a ziplock bag, but since the characters have less it is nice.

The Winner?

I think that I prefer Tainted Grail but I also have more time in the land of Avalon than in the world of Sleeping Gods. Mechanically it offers more interesting to choices, but I really do like both. And I think I’d play both solo, but I’d play them with different groups of people. My campaign group would enjoy both. But I’d play Sleeping Gods with my wife because Tainted Grail might be a bit too much to track. Sleeping Gods is that little bit simpler but still big and epic adventure game.

Have you played both, which do you prefer? If you haven’t, does one interest you more than the other? Let me know in the comments below.

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What Are Social Deduction Games?

Social Deduction games are games where you generally have two groups. One group is the “bad” group who are trying to complete some objective. Sabotage missions, kill the deputy, whatever it might be. The “good” group is trying to figure out who the “bad” group is and deal with them.

To expound on my issue, most games give you your rolls and then immediately, before anything else happens, you talk about who is good and bad. There is 0 information to go on, and unless someone is bad at lying. So, you spend a few minutes, do something that gives some information and repeat the process. But let’s stop on the negatives, what do I look for is a better question because I do have some I like.

What Do I Look For in a Social Deduction Game

1. Mechanics
2. Information
3. Theme

Mechanics

This might surprise some people to see the order of the list. When I do make these lists, I try and put the more important ones towards the front. And honestly, for social deduction, mechanics for me are very important. I talk about the blind guessing as a negative in the games. And with good mechanics, you don’t need to start out with that. It gives you some interesting things to think about. Some games give you a bunch to start with, and some games give you nothing, but having more than just guessing at the beginning is key for me.

Information

That first one ties into information. I don’t like games that just give you limited information. If in mafia Tony is killed and I know I’m not part of the mafia, that doesn’t help me narrow it down. It just means that Tony wasn’t. I want the information to be meaningful and to build over time. The longer a game or round goes, the more information I should have available to me. Not always making it easier but to at least make more informed decisions. Too many of these games provide double blind information which isn’t that useful.

Theme

Theme really does matter in these games too. Let’s just use an example for this one, spies trying to infiltrate and sabotage an evil corporation, cool theme. Avalon where some people are bad, way less cool. I love Arthurian legend games, Tainted Grail, but The Resistance Avalon is not nearly as good a theme as the regular Resistance has. Mechanics might be the same, but theme makes a difference.

Are All Criteria Equally Important?

For me, theme is probably the least important. If the game has good mechanics and information the theme matters a little bit less. Like I said, I really want more going on than just sitting around a table accusing people. If you give that to me in a package where it makes sense for mafia, monsters, or whatever it might be, I’m probably going to be fine with the theme.

Let’s Do An Example

So we’re going to go with one that I do like in Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. But let’s see why and how it meets my criteria.

Mechanics

The main mechanic of the game actually is just for one player, the forensic scientist. There has been a murder, as the name would suggest. And one player, the forensic scientist is sending up reports to help the detectives figure out the correct murder weapon and piece of evidence. They, however, are not allowed to speak, they just give out a clue that might be a location from a list of locations or the age of the victim.

Information

The clue giving works because with every new report the players get new information. However, the information isn’t always going to be ideal. The age of the victim, well, if they were killed with a school supply, that might help us. But it also might not be useful. And the forensic scientist doesn’t get to pick out which reports they send up, that is already determined. Plus the murder (and possibly accomplice) will use that information to try and throw all the investigators onto other weapons and evidence as they go. And everyone is doing that as more information comes out.

Theme

Solving a murder is a fun theme. Generally, though, I like that theme in deduction. Here it works well in social deduction because, well, there is an element of deduction worked into this as well. I don’t know that the theme is amazingly tied to the mechanics, but it’s one that sets up a fun scenario.

Maybe what I like is social deduction games that have a bit of deduction to them as well. But this one is really somewhat social as you try and read who might be lying. If people are directing away from a person what that might mean. So the social aspect around the table is important.

Will This Work For You?

Probably not. Why, because most people who really like social deduction games don’t care that the game aspect might be lacking slightly. They are there for the banter around the table. I don’t mind the banter around the table, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong has some amazing banter. I just want the banter to mean something. So, if you are like me where you don’t like most social deduction games, maybe checkout Deception: Murder in Hong Kong or Grimm Masquerade. But for a lot of gamers, things like The Resistance and Werewolf, and One Night Ultimate Vampire are going to be great games.

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The Games

So let’s dive into both of the games a little bit. This might actually come across a bit as my Board Game Battles, because, well, they are battling for my money as to which one I’ll back.

Chronicles of Drunagor

This game is on it’s second crowdfunding over on Gamefound. It previously was on Kickstarter and has met with a lot of love from those playing it. It is an epic dark dungeon crawl game. You fight monsters, race against the darkness and bust down doors. That then gives you more story and adventure that you fight through.

You level up your character as you go and unlock new skills. Chronicles of Drunagor has an interesting action system where you are playing out cubes to activate different things. When you pull them back, you are placing out a black cube which blocks off an action from you. So you need to figure out that puzzle to maximize your actions and then pull back blocking what you won’t need.

Chronicles of Drunagor is really going to be the pure dungeon crawler of the two. And I like that about it because while I do have a number of dungeon crawlers, I haven’t gotten something that is purely that recently.

Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread

Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread, on the other hand, is going to have more that adventure feel to it. Yes, there is still tactical combat with monsters on a map, but it’s trying to be more of an RPG than Chronicles of Drunagor is. It really is going to have you going across the lands and finding quests, fighting monsters, and more.

You do get to level up your characters, and while these characters are more generic, some of how they work is more unique. The miniatures actually don’t come with a head on them, instead you get to pick the one to put on which gives the player more control over there. And I really like the inventory system. You are placing tiles onto a character board. Those spots are then the different spots monsters can attack.

This also has a very interesting exploration system. You see a lot of it at the world view level as you travel around. But then you can delve deeper into specific locations. And in those locations you can then delve into buildings as well. So it gets down to the point where you are dealing with people and have conversations but also backs way out from that.

The Price Point

So let’s compare the price point and what you get at each price point. Chronicles of Drunagor, for just the base game is going to be $115 plus shipping of $40. So that comes in around $155 for just the base game content which is a lot, more details to come, and compared to Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread, that is $165 with $20 for shipping. So Chronicles of Drunagor is cheaper for the base game by $30.

But that’s clearly not all that’s in determining the value of a game. In fact, that’s going to be a topic that I talk about on Monday on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. When looking at the two, Chronicles of Drunagor definitely has the edge in terms of minis. Arydia isn’t so much a minis focused game. The value there comes from other things. You get a ton of tiles to explore, and just tiles in general.

I would give the edge, however, to Chronicles of Drunagor. Especially since Chronicles of Drunagor is proven to have good resale value, but on the flip side, Chronicles of Drunagor also has way more that you can add onto it. While I say it’s around $155, that’s just for the base game, you could easily push that up to $300+. Assuming now addons, the max for Arydia is going to be $210.

What Draws Me To Them?

I don’t think it should be a surprise, but I love campaign games. Both of these games offer me that. What do I love about campaign games, I like the character progression, I like to figure out that puzzle of how to make my character better and tailor them to my style of play.

I really do think that both of them give a lot of opportunity for that. The question is which one does it better for me. Let’s look at a number of categories to see which one might be better for me.

• Theme
• Mechanics
• Characters
• Character Leveling
• Equipment
• Ease of Play
• Value
• Play Group

Theme

This seems like it should be a tie because they are both fantasy, but they are different types of fantasy. Chronicles of Drunagor is more of a grim dark fantasy setting versus Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread is more of an epic fantasy looking game. I like both types of fantasy but sometimes grim dark turns me off of a game. If the game looks like it’s grim dark for the sake of being edgy, I will call that out. However, I don’t think that Chronicles of Drunagor looks like that. It looks to me like the story is crafted to be grim dark for the sake of the story, not for the sake of being edgy.

Winner: Chronicles of Drunagor

Mechanics

This is going to be another really close one. I think I like the combat mechanics better in Chronicles of Drunagor. The puzzle aspect of how you use skills seems really interesting to me. I like the idea of losing some as you go along, it is actually a bunch like Gloomhaven that way where you’d lose cards as you rested. Here, when you pull stuff back you lose an ability for more of the crawl, or until you rest in a certain way.

On the flip side, while I think that puzzle is more interesting, I think that the exploring, while interesting in Chronicles of Drunagor is cooler in Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread. I like going from a tile to a grid map and then even into buildings. That has more of an RPG feel to it, which is another big difference. Arydia is much more of an RPG, and I love a good story element.

Winner: Slightest of Edges to Chronicles of Drunagor

Characters

The characters, while Arydia gives you more character diversity so you can pick what you want to look like more so, Chronicles of Drunagor seems to give you more diversity in the types (classes) of character you want to play. So I really, of course, like both of these again. But the ability to swap heads on minis in Arydia just so cool and something I haven’t seen before at all.

Winner: Slightest of Edges to Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread

Character Leveling

I’m going to stop saying that it’s close because honestly, I wouldn’t be thinking about it so hard if it wasn’t close. But both of these have cool character progression. You unlock more skills and abilities. But I think what will sway me on this is that Chronicles of Drunagor again has that puzzle aspect to it. Now, that said, I feel like I also have a better grasp on Chronicles of Drunagor’s leveling as compared to Arydia. And it does seem like with Arydia there is a lot that you can do to customize your character as well.

Winner: Chronicles of Drunagor

Equipment

This is one that isn’t close. Arydia, I think has the better equipment. Not because it is cooler, though I’m not super familiar with the Chronicles of Drunagor equipment, but because it’s used in multiple ways. Firstly, it is fun to draw it out of a treasure chest to see what you get. But also you are attacked towards certain pieces/areas of the body. So your gloves matter for defense on your hands. And that is not something I’ve really seen before. It makes equipment choices even more tactical as you play.

Winner: Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread

Ease of Play

A hard one to pick, not because they are close to being easy to get out to play. Both of these games look like they have a ton of stuff. I don’t think that either of them would be easy to set-up. Also, neither of theme seems like it’ll just be set-up at the start. I won’t know what locations I’m going to delve deeper into for Arydia. And I don’t know what’s behind the doors in Chronicles of Drunagor. That is something that you need to know about both games. Honestly, I don’t think there is a winner here.

Winner: Draw

Value

We’ve talked about value above with the price point. But it’s tough because Chronicles of Drunagor can get really expensive really fast. And value means more than that, which has more value in me getting it played? Do I have a larger group for one game or another one?

Price point wise for what I want from Chronicles of Drunagor, the base game and stretch goal box, plus the expansion, it’d cost more than Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread. And I really think that both are going to hold their value very well. Chronicles of Drunagor because there are a lot of people who are looking for it, and Arydia because there will be and it’s a known designer of Xia: Legeds of the Drift.

Winner: Chronicles of Drunagor (barely)

Play Group

Another close one, I have my campaign group and another person or two I could play a campaign with. My main campaign group I doubt I’d get to it for a while. We are doing Tainted Grail, we want to try Apocrypha, and we have Frosthaven coming. So there is no shortage of campaign games, plus I have Middara and more. Both of them, like I said in ease of play are going to be a lot for a lot of gamers. It has a ton going on. I think I might be more apt to get Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread to the table because it feel closer to an RPG.

Winner: Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread

So Which Will I Back?

Honestly, it’s really close. Looking at all the different categories I gave, Chronicles of Drunagor barely wins at 4-3 with one draw in there. I thin that I’m leaning towards Chronicles of Drunagor, even though it is slightly more expensive. It sounds like they are adding in more branching and developing story compared to what it originally had. If they weren’t doing that, I think that Arydia might have a better chance. For my style of gaming, I just think that the puzzle of Chronicles of Drunagor is more interesting. I have one day to decide though when Chronicles of Drunagor will have wrapped up.

Which would you back?

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Clean and Messy Design

What do those two terms mean when it comes to how a board game is made? Is this something that is inherently in every board game out there?

I’ll start with the second question, every board game has some level of clean or messy design. It is more used to describe how polished a board game feels, how tight the mechanics are. So every game has mechanics clean design or messy design is how we talk about them.

Clean Design

A board game with clean design is one that almost strips down the game to the main mechanics. Those mechanics are then highly polished so that there aren’t any or maybe exceptions to the rules. And the rules can be written in a clean and concise way. This sort of design is really focused on making a game that is easy to remember the rules and that you won’t have questions when playing if you know the rules well enough. It is very focused on neat, tight, game play more so over theme.

Messy Design

Messy Design is the opposite of that. It is really trying to push how a game is thematically. That means that choices are made in the design of the game aren’t always going to be the most straight forward. Often times a game is going to do things to keep the theme of the game. This creates a messier design space and creates exceptions. It also means that there are things in the game that might not be able to be found in the rulebook. Instead it’s more asking the question, if there isn’t a rule for it, what makes the most sense thematically, or what is worse for me as a player?

Which is Better?

I think it’s a common idea that a game with a cleaner design, or some people, is going to be the better game. Or that the ones with cleaner designs should be the better games. I say that neither of them is better or worse. Both have their advantages, and both have their flaws.

Clean Design

With a clean design that is generally going to lend itself really well towards more of a gateway style game or a Euro game. They are the ones that people can get into easily because they are used to games having a pretty specific ruleset when coming from games like Clue, Monopoly, and Scrabble. And when teaching new players some of their first modern board games, I go for that sort of game.

But, the downside is that these games can seem limited. When the rules are written too cleanly, it can mean that the games are generally going to play in a consistent manner. This can mean that the game has limited plays in it because it’ll play out the same. Clean design can be boring at times as well. It doesn’t feel like there is a soul to the game, it just feels like mechanics. Finally, a too clean design means that when something stands out as messy or unbalanced, it’s really obvious.

One game that is kind of like that is Tapestry. Tapestry, and Stonemaier games in generally have really clean designs. Maybe less so on Tapestry, but with Tapestry, the different groups you play are unbalanced. They had to come out with additional rules after the fact to balance out the different groups. Why, because it was glaringly obvious in a game that is so focused on mechanics.

Messy Design

Messy, like I’ve talked about, is going to be all about the thematic nature of a game. It means that what feels right for the setting of the game is what is right for the game. Whereas clean was more gateway, these are the big games on the shelf that everyone stops to look at. Even from the box cover, they draw you into the game and make you excited to play it.

There are, of course, downsides. The main one is that a game like this is harder to get into. I know board games well, so I can learn rules well. But for a new player, it won’t seem right that there isn’t a direct or correct answer to something. That doesn’t seem right for a game that has a massive amount of rules, which can happen fairly often. And when they do try and cover all the exceptions, what is when you get a 50 page rule book.

One game that stands out to me as having a messier design, not always in a great way, is Seafall. That game wants you to feel like pirates, but they manage to create a rulebook that makes it hard to learn how to play the game. And when playing the game, the direction of what you should do and how the story comes out doesn’t work well. Some of this is that they didn’t playtest the whole thing together, but some of it is that they wanted to create a legacy game that was a sandbox.

Which Do I Prefer?

I prefer my games to be a bit messier. Games when they can be broken are interesting to me. I don’t want the games to break every time, but once in a while, if someone gets the right combo, it can be a blast. But more so than me loving a ruleset that has lots of questions with it, it is more me loving games that are very thematic.

A game with too clean a ruleset is boring to me. Not to pick on Stonemaier games, but Charterstone is a great example of this. I love legacy games. But Charterstone is just okay. Charterstone pretends to have a story about building the best part of a town for a king. Then you pick something to either please or annoy the king at the end of each game. There is no story, in fact, it might have been better without any story. Charterstone is a pretty simple mechanical game. So while I like how it plays, playing through all the games to get to the end is a lot. It doesn’t feel like you are progressing, just adding.

Compare that to something like Tainted Grail. There is some to learn to play the game, but most of what you are doing is flipping through things and reading story. The story drives the game and there are things that happen in the story that don’t always make perfect sense mechanically. The game regularly gives you ways to break the rules of the game. But to me, that is way more fun. I can dive into it and see so many unique things and I feel like I’m part of the story and the world that I’m immersed in, in Tainted Grail.

How About You?

Do you prefer that your games have a clean design or a messy design? Obviously there is a spectrum there, Seafall was a bit too much of a mess for me at times. But what direction do you lean?

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Why You Wouldn’t

There are obviously some reasons that you’d be unlikely to play campaign games again. A lot of them tell a story that is important to the game play as you go along. Once you know the story, it won’t be fresh or new again. You will see parts of the story over again even if the story does have some branching narrative paths. And that removes some of the fun of the game knowing what is coming up.

You also might have more campaign games to play. Honestly, this is what will keep me from revisiting something like Gloomhaven with another group soon. I have a lot of other campaign games to get through from Tainted Grail that I’m playing now to Reichbusters and Apocrpyha on the shelf now, and games like Middara, Frosthaven, and Oathsworn coming in probably this year. So it isn’t like I’ll be running out of games to play in the genre.

Why You Would

Now, there are reasons to again. I talk about how you might have seen a lot of the story, but you won’t have seen all of it. For example, I have played the first chapter of Tainted Grail 5 times now, twice solo, and then two different groups three times. I know I haven’t seen everything. I know that the group that I have played it twice with, I’ve done different things than before. So if the story is highly engaging and offers a wide variety, then there is reason to go back through it.

Mechanically if the game is interesting I’m more tempted to go back through it as well. For example, Gloomhaven, I love how that game works mechanically. I love the card play in it. I see going back to it eventually if my kid grows up to like board games. It is a big game, but it’d be something to share experience over, or if I have another group of players who really want to play it. I won’t get bored, even though I’ve seen a lot of story, playing through it again, because there are still classes I haven’t played.

Finally, bonding, board games are something that bring people together. And a campaign game can bring a group of people together more consistently. It is like Dungeons and Dragons that way, you can set-up a standing time where you play. It grows friendships and gives people a reason to get out and see people, which in Minnesota in the winter, you sometimes need. That is why I tried to keep it going, and we did a solid job of it, throughout the pandemic playing on TableTop Simulator or games via Zoom.

What Games Would I Wouldn’t I Play Again?

I think it might be useful to talk about the campaign games that I have played, the two I’ve finished and the one I’m going through now and see if I’d play them again and why. It is easy to explain that there are cool things about them, or I really like them, but is that enough to keep them around.

Tainted Grail

Let us start with the one that I’m playing. Mechanically the game is solid, but that isn’t the reason I have played it so many times. Some of it, thus far, is because it is hard. But the story is the element that really draws me back to it. I know, like I said, that there is more yet to find in that game. We finally made it to chapter four last night, and I’m seeing all sorts of new things that I didn’t know about before. I am going to new locations on the island of Avalon and fighting new monsters. For Tainted Grail that openness of the world and story is what keep me coming back to it.

Sword & Sorcery

Now, I sold this game, it might give you a hint. There are two things that kept me from wanting to come back to it. The story itself is fun, but it doesn’t branch much. So you play the story once, you know what will happen. And mechanically, it is a bit lacking at times as well. I love leveling up, getting new abilities, and fighting in new ways. But that doesn’t happen that often. So it ends up being the same thing, find a monster, use an ability, aim, and attack. You roll dice, and it’s just the same combos over and over. It is just missing that umph that Tainted Grail has.

Gloomhaven

Finally, Gloomhaven, that one is my #1 game of all time. It is staying in my collection, and I would gladly play it again. It doesn’t have the most in depth and branching story. But what it does well is give you enough story to keep it interesting. And it gives you a ton in it’s game play. Mechanically with all the different classes you can play, it is so much fun. We saw all of them in my play through, but I haven’t played all of them. So Gloomhaven gives you a lot to go back to, and you can just play randomly generated scenarios as well, which is cool.

Would you go back to a campaign game? What has made you go back if you have before? What do you look for in one that you think you might go back to?

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Now, pretty often there are games that I’ll save to decide if I want to back them later. It could be because with how we budget I don’t have the funds to back it right now without borrowing against future budget, or it could be because I’m not sure how interesting the game actually looks but it has an interesting theme or cool miniatures. I’ll come back to them when there are 48 hours left, Kickstarter sends out a notification, and the vast majority of the time I won’t back them. I think only once have a backed a game in the last 48 hours.

However, there are a ton of games that come out on Kickstarter every day. There’s a reason I check multiple times per day, it’s because there will most likely be three new games once we hit noon that weren’t there in the morning, another three in the evening, and five or so over night. So the real question is, how does one not go broke with all the really fun looking games coming out?

There are a few things I consider when looking at kickstarter games:

1. How unique is the game?
2. Does it fit my interests for theme?
3. Does it fit my style of game I like to play?
4. Will it hit the mass market?

How Unique Is the Game?

This one is first because it’s the most subjective and others can outweigh and override the decision about a not that unique game down the line. But if the game looks like it’s just stealing from another game or seems like someone jammed two games together that I already have, do I need the game? I know, I don’t need any game, but you know what I mean. There have been a lot of dungeon crawl type of games, for example, that have come out, do I need more than a couple of dungeon crawl games in my collection, and do I play the ones I have already? Or if a game says it innovates upon a game I already like, do I need that new game if I’m enjoying the old game?

Does it Fit My Interests for Theme?

This one is also subjective, but going to be more cut and dry for you as a person. If the game is a Lovecraft Horror game and you don’t like Lovecraft or horror, it’s fine to skip over that game even though it looks cool. Or maybe you love Lovecraft and horror, in that case, look at the project and see if it is going to match your style of game you like to play. But more on that in a second, just remember that because something looks cool or looks like it would be fun, but the theme is boring to you, you don’t have to buy it. Save your money for a game that you know you’re going to like the theme of it. There are a number of highly rated games that I don’t think I’ll ever own, and some that I’ve gotten rid of because the them of the game is boring to me.

Does it Fit My Style of Game I Like to Play?

I mentioned it above, but if the game is a dungeon crawler with a lot of dice and you don’t like the randomness of dice, but you like dungeon crawlers, that game might not be for you. If you want a game with a lot of confrontation and it doesn’t have it in the game, it might not be for you. I know I sound like a broken record, but before you put your hard earned money into a game, make sure that you will like it. Like above, there are a number of highly rated games on Board Game Geek that don’t interest me at all because of the mechanics of the game.

Will It Hit the Mass Market?

Now, this one is the biggest of them all. If the game is not just going to be on kickstarter, you have more time to decide. For example, Gloomhaven might have been slightly cheaper on Kickstarter and there might have been some added content for it, but you can buy Gloomhaven in your local game stores. This is one of the toughest areas though, beause of the Kickstarter exclusive content, it might seem like you’re getting less of a game if you don’t back it on Kickstarter. Let me say that if a company thinks it’s cool for them give you half a game with the other half meaning you have to get an add-on or kickstarter exclusive, I wouldn’t work with that creator. The game should be complete and ready to play without anything extra and still a ton of fun. So with that in mind, if it hits the mass market and you can get it at your local game store or better yet you can play a demo copy at your local game store and then buy it, that’s better for you because you can truly see if you like the theme and game play.

Now, I mention FOMO, and fear of missing out is huge when it comes to kickstarters. Sometimes the company won’t say explicitly that it is coming to game shops, but most of the time it’s fairly obvious if they aren’t because they will say that. If you don’t see that, you can assume it’ll come to a game shop. The bigger reason for FOMO on Kickstarters is that there is something that is Kickstarter exclusive. Sometimes you’ll see custom dice or minis that you can add on instead of just cardboard cutouts or meeples. I’m not going to pretend like those aren’t tough to pass on sometimes. And I got a Ghostbusters game, which is fun, because it has a million figures in it and I like Ghostbusters, I didn’t know a ton about the mechanics.

I don’t have a great suggestion for FOMO and about how to avoid it with Kickstarter board games. The best I can suggest is that you set a budget and stick to it. That’s what I do with board games in general. I know what money I have to spend and I can choose what I spend it up, but once I’ve hit that amount, I stop. It can be tough, because there’s always a new shiny game coming out. Another thing that might help is remembering that you aren’t going to get the game for a long time, most likely. Board games generally take about 8 months to a year to fulfill on Kickstarter. Now, some do go faster than that, but that tends to be larger companies that are just funding a first wave of printing, versus still wrapping up prototyping and rules. So by the time the game comes, you might not care anymore.

So this begs a few questions:
What games have you backed on Kickstarter?
How do you cope with FOMO when it comes to Kickstarter or other new board games?

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

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