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30 through 21

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 20 through 11

20. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

• Published by Days of Wonder in 2022
• Fly around the track and manage your engine so it doesn’t over heat to win the race

This is a great racing game. It is a nice blend of simplicity. You play cards equal to the gear that you are in for your movement. But also some complexity as you need to be smart with how you handle the curves, straightaways, how much you push your engine and when you cool it down. That cooling down part of the game is great as it really makes a difference in how you play and when you push it. Plus there are modules you use, like drafting some cards for your deck, that make the game even more fun, or you can do a series of races which is also great.

Buy Heat: Pedal to the Metal

19. Planet Unknown

• Published by Adam’s Apple Games in 2022
• Terraform your planet and increase your technology better than your opponents can

Planet Unknown is a polyomino game where you are terraforming a planet. You can play it in the basic mode where everyone is doing the same planet and same tech track, or you can do unique planets and tech tracks. I love the unique ones and I think that’s the way to go after the first game. But Planet Unknown has more than just laying out tiles, how you decide which tile is picked for you is amazing. Whomever is the leader that round turns a lazy susan full of tiles and whatever one is pointing to where you pick from, those are your options. So you can stick someone with something or sometimes get the perfect thing.

Buy Planet Unknown

18. Clank! In! Space!

• Published by Dire Wolf in 2017
• Race through a spaceship but don’t try and make too much noise as you grab a treasure and get out

This is a push your luck deckbuilding game, and I enjoy both of those elements to the game. I find that pure push your luck doesn’t always work for me, but add in deckbuilding a mechanism I love, it’s great. You build up your deck to move and grab a treasure, fight monsters, and buy more cards that are worth points. But you also need to be aware of how noisy you are. If you’re too noisy the villain, Lord Eradikus will start drawing out your cubes, if you clank, and dealing damage to you. And you might not make it out before you die.

Buy Clank! In! Space!

17. ISS Vanguard

• Published by Awaken Realms in 2022
• Explore a new solar system while you manage your crew and your ship

ISS Vanguard is a big campaign game and one that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples. Not the whole way through, but far enough to give you an idea of how it plays. The game is interesting because it plays over two parts. Part of the game is exploring planets and discovering why humanity was called out to this location in the stars. The other part is managing your ship. I was worried that managing your ship wouldn’t feel important, but it’s a great element to the game and makes it feel even more thematic.

Buy ISS Vanguard

16. Vampire the Masquerade: CHAPTERS

• Published by Flyos Games in 2023
• Enter a world of vampires and darkness as you play across missions and try and figure out what is happening in Montreal

Chapters is choose your own adventure RPG in a box. I love how it gives you this great story filled with depth and grit. And it also gives you tactical combat and dice chucking. It feels like a great blend of things that I love in board games and in RPG’s. The story is well written and while there are definitely issues with it there is an app that should be helping fix that and an upgrade pack for it. But even without that, the game is fun, and the app is free so the few spots it’s really busted should be fixed. Plus, I want to play a dark vampire game, and this gives me that in spades.

Buy Vampire: the Masquerade – CHAPTERS

15. Metal Gear Solid

• Published by CMON in 2024/2025
• Sneak around the base and battle only when you need to complete missions

Yes, there is a game on my list that isn’t out yet. Spoilers, there might be another one as well coming up in my Top 10. But that is because I’ve gotten to play the final version of the game and I feel like I’ve had enough time with it. I love this game as it’s a tactical minis game where you can fight. But fighting generally is going to be noisy and messy and you’ll be swarmed. When that happens, well, it’s probably game over for you. So instead you need to be smart, sneak around, and try and avoid the guards the best you can or lose them. All while being a pretty simple game to play.

Coming Soon

14. Lost Ruins of Arnak

• Published by Czech Games Edition in 2020
• Explore the lands, find treasure, fight monsters and discover what adventure awaits you

Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deckbuilding game. It is a worker placement game, and it’s a exploring adventure game. For me all of those elements come through. And I love the puzzle of trying to manage your two workers you get place, knowing when and where to place them, buying cards, and risking fighting monsters. Because you need to do it all, and the game isn’t that long in terms of how many rounds it is. But if you’re smart, you can stretch it out for a lot of points and a lot of chaining actions. The Expedition Leaders even adds more fun to the game and more variability as well which I love.

Buy Lost Ruins of Arnak

13. XenoShyft Onslaught

• Published by CMON in 2015
• The base is under attack by bugs, you need to build up your defenses and work together to defeat them

I think I’m the champion of XenoShyft, but I really like the game. It’s another deckbuilding game, but it’s a cooperative one. And I think that cooperative element and how incredibly interactive the cooperation is, that is what makes the game stand out to me. Plus it does a clever thing where you’re never drawing dead with money, so you can always buy cards and bolster up your defenses. Because everyone needs to be able to defend their side of the base so the bugs don’t overrun it.

Out of Print, but you can find it on eBay

12. Marvel Champions

• Published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2019
• Heroes battle villains in this Marvel Superhero game

I love Marvel, we all know that. And Marvel Champions is one of my favorite, if not my favorite Marvel themed game. What I love about this one is that you feel like you are the hero. And not only that, you need to think about being the hero but balancing that with the alter ego. If you stay in hero form the bad guy will beat you up and probably take you out. But if you are in the alter ego side, they don’t know who you are, so they’ll go back to completing their scheme. And that’s not great as well because you can’t blow your cover in alter ego form.

Buy Marvel Champions

11. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

• Published by Portal Games in 2018
• Take on the role of detectives and work together, take the notes, and try and solve the cases

Detective for me is my favorite deduction game. I like deduction a lot, but Detective just makes it really immersive. In the box I’m showing it has five cases that all connect into something big and impressive. And you use information that you took notes on from one case and use it in another. I think by the end of all five cases I had between 12 and 15 pages of notes that we’d look back at. And it uses a computer system as well to let you do things like compare DNA, interview witnesses, and more. The game is just this great thematic detective game for me.

Buy Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Upcoming Streams

Just a reminder on my streaming schedule. It’s not just all my Top 100 Games (of all time).

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to continue my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition. There is one week left, which is going to be two Wednesdays out. After that I’m planning on doing some look back and look ahead videos and smaller solo games or things like Balatro and Slay the Spire.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

The best way to know when we go live, though is to subscribe and click that notification bell. I can’t promise, and in fact it’s pretty unlikely, that I’ll have events to click on ahead of time. Though I do want to get better at it. I hope that you can join a stream and hop into the chat. And let me know what games in this list are your favorite or that you want to try.

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Thrain and Barrai spooked by the noise decided to book it towards the direction of the mess hall. There they run into a stone wall and Barrai thinks it’s a dead end but Thrain, with his dwarven eyes study it and see that there appears to be a single stone, large, that looks like it’s loose that he could push out of the way. It takes some effort and Barrai’s help but they push the door out of the way and they see that they are in the cellar where they were supposed to have gone for shelter during the dragon attack.

Bokken thinking that everything is good leaves Sanphire up in the tower after their dagger throwing competition and heads back into the mess hall through the kitchen. In the kitchen he is caught by Narius. But Narius, after having gotten beaten up by their group once decides not to fight him and just finishes drinking his water. Bokken settles down watching the door for the night.

Thrain and Barrai thinking that they are being smart decide to loop back around, sneaking outside to see whom they can see who was following them down the tunnel. They make it to a corner and they see Sanphire, out of the tower where he had been keeping watch, going to pick up the two daggers. One of the daggers is lying by the trapdoor which is propped ever so slightly open by a piton. Barrai, thinking quickly, decides to try and cast sleep on Sanphire. However, the spell doesn’t seem to have an affect on him, instead there is a thump from down inside the tunnel and Sanphire notices the trapdoor and the piton. He throws open the trapdoor and messages Tormin. Tormin sees the trapdoor and looks surprised by it. He wakes up the other teachers and they all come out. Barrai, watching the proceedings notices that neither the teachers Dadellous or Linken seem surprised or as surprised as they should be by the trapdoor. Or at least as surprised as Assendial and Tormin did. Barrai and Thrain sneak back inside.

Inside they go back to sleep and are awakened early in the morning by Assendial and Tormin who wake up all the students. Tormin tells them about the secret tunnel and that something was found underneath the barracks where the dragon had attacked and where Castillia had gotten her leg broken. They then tell the students that they are going to question them one by one and start on that process while Linken and Dadellous continue to study the tunnels.

Bokken is the first to go in to be questioned. He steps in and realizes that the room has had some spell cast on it, a zone of truth, and that he has to tell the truth, not Liar Liar style but he cannot right out lie. Assendial is sitting there and she asks him if he knew about the tunnel or any secret passage prior to Tormin telling them about it. He answers truthfully that he did. She asks him what entrance to it he knew of, he answers truthfully. She pulls out four items, a necklace, a scarab, an amulet, and rock with runes etched into it, she asks him if he knows which was found down in the tunnel underneath the barracks. He answers truthfully that he doesn’t.

Barrai is next, and he also fails his saving throw against the zone of truth. Realizing this he hems and haws a bit about it. Assendial asks him to clarify if he knew about it, and he hems and haws some more. She next asks him where an entrance is, he gives a vague answer but not a lie about how a place as old as this there are probably several entrances. Finally she asks him which of the items was under the barracks. He guesses that a dragon would probably want the items that have the most value and that the necklace, amulet and scarab are all golden. Or maybe it’s the rune covered rock because that’s different.

Parrag goes in next followed by Thrain. Thrain who has a very high charisma doesn’t fail the saving throw and he and Assendial know it. She asks him if he knows about the tunnel, he answers truthfully that he does. She asks him if he knows where they are or if he’s been down in there. He successfully deceives her that he knows less about the tunnels and where they go then he actually does. She pulls out the items and asks him about them, about their origins, which was found under ground, what he knows about their magical properties. Thrain is 100% truthful with her that he really doesn’t know much about them. She believes him.

Everyone else is sent back into a large group except for Narius, Addrus, Barrai and two second year students. They are all brought into one room together with all the teachers and are asked a couple of questions, the first that they had to write down was how many different directions the tunnel splits at it’s single junction point. Narius says outloud 4, but had written down 2. Addrus says 4 and has written down 4, Barrai says 4 and has written down 4, one second year has said 4 and written down 4, the last one has written down “?” and says 4. Next they are asked where the four directions of the tunnel go. The first 2nd year just writes down “I don’t know” and says “I don’t know”, the next one says “Moody’s Bar, the field, the cellar, and the tower” and has written that down. Barrai has written down “Not not the field, not not the cellar, not not somewhere fun, and not not somewhere awesome” and says that. Addrus gives the same answer the second year who knew all the directions. Narius, on the other hand, gives all the right answers but only had written down “the field, the food, and the drink”.

The two second years are let out of the room as is Barrai while Narius and Addrus are kept in the room to answer more questions.

The group decides to go to Moody’s bar, since they assume that the trapdoor and the hidden door into the cellar will be blocked off for good now, and they should try and find another way in. Moody’s Bar is the one where the fighting circle that Barrai and Thrain had made some money before, and they had seen Sanphire and Esmelda fight. Bokken decides to give them a good cover as they search around. Barrai and Thrain spot Zaphir, an older student from another school whom they’d swindled before in a fixed fight. They go up to him and see if he wants to bet with them on the Bokken fight. He recognizes them and knowing that they had taken his money before, he orders two beers, plus he has one in front of him. When the beers arrive, he takes one in each hand and smashes them into the faces of Barrai and Thrain. A bar fight ensues and Thrain unleashes an eldritch blast on him, plus hex damage and takes him down. The bartender kicks them out of the bar so that they don’t get in more trouble since technically Zaphir started it, and they head out just until Zaphir is gone. Then they sneak back in wearing fake moustaches (a Dwarf and a Tiefling) and join the crowds who are getting ready for the first fight. They get their program which has the betting odds and see they can get 5 for one on Bokken, slightly worse than normal first time fighters. So Thrain puts down two gold and Barrai puts down 10 gold, that he’d stolen off of Zaphir. And the announcer came out….

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the week night fights…. Let’s get ready to rumble………”

Behind the DM’s screen:

Most of this session was ad libbed. I had some plans for them down in the tunnels, but because of choices that were made, mainly Bokken heading back when he did and not picking up the daggers things changed. Had he picked up the daggers even, they could have gone through the cellar, come back around, and repeated the process. I’m assuming they would have been the ones to find the odd object in the tunnel under the barracks, instead of the teachers. And that was going to be my main plan, things clearly went differently.

One thing that was a lot of fun was the Zone of Truth just to see the different tacts and different successes for passing. I like how Zone of Truth works where you know as the person who is in it what is happening so you can talk around the truth, but the caster also knows if you pass or fail. It makes for some interesting moments in gaming.

And Zaphir being at the bar was totally something the players asked about. So the fact there was a bar fight is on them, Zaphir survived to fight another day.

We’ll have a few weeks off now from any more Tower of the Gods. I’m in the midst of moving and seeing as this is remote, I’m not sure when I’ll have my computer and full set-up ready to go again.

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

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Upon coming there, they were informed as part of a test, that there were spies in their midst that they could get extra credit if they could figure out who they were by the end of the two years there. So, Barrai, Bokken, and Thrain immediately set out to figure that out. They determined that Dorin was a suspect and Barrai used his new found friendship with Domon, another Tiefling, to send Domon to accuse Dorin, which, they aren’t sure was successful.

In their barracks they had gotten matched up with Dorin, a Gnome Rogue who fancied himself to be the leader of their barracks no matter what Barrai, Bokken, and Thrain told him. During the time that our three main characters were talking to the other students, Dorin had gone through their stuff, but they didn’t find that out until after an introductory meal where Bokken considered breaking into a teachers office to see if there was more information on the students and who might be the spy. In the end, he didn’t break in, but had Castillia, an elf whom they trust and trusts them, start spying on Narius, a rich halfling.

They returned to their barracks to find out that there things had been gone through, but Dorin not being the brightest, hadn’t trashed his own things so they quickly caught on and accused him. Thrain, as a revenge when through Dorin’s stuff, including a couple of daggers and books that were written in a language that none of them understood, possibly because none of them speak gnomish. Needless to say, Dorin was pissed off, and Barrai decided to try and restrain him when he went to bed, but that didn’t work that well, so Bokken, instead took up just watching him sleep, since Bokken, as a warforged sleeps with his eyes open, however, Bokken wasn’t a great watch and Dorin snuck out.

Dorin went to one of the teachers and the next morning the Thrain, Barrai, and Bokken were confronted about how they had been treating Dorin. They gave a half hearted apology and Dorin said he wanted to transfer to another group. Tormin, the teacher, agreed, and the group was happy enough and really wanted to get Narius into their barracks to keep a closer eye on him, so Tormin presented them with a challenge. They could pick who they wanted if they, minus Dorin, could take on another barracks and beat them, otherwise, he would decide. They went to an arena and the teachers, keeping an eye on things, and other students watching the spectacle watched as Thrain, Barrai, and Bokken took on Castillia, Narius, Adris – a human, and Cordon – a dragonborn.

Barrai gets to act first and gives Bokken some inspiration and then starts to mess with Castillia, who, swiftly puts a stop to that with a wicked arrow shot dropping Barrai. He gets floated off by the teachers. Thrain then returns the favor to Castillia and the sides are down to two, Thrain and Bokken, against three. The fighting slows down after the first volley as Cordon, with her dislike for Thrain, immediately moves in to target him. They trade attacks with Cordon even using her lightning dragons breath on Thrain, but his stead volley of eldritch blasts eventually knock her down to the ground. Bokken, meanwhile, has gone and faced off against Adris, the fighter. They trade blow after blow dealing little damage to each other with Narius, who had claimed to be a great shot, struggling to hit Bokken. His frustration mounting and Thrain joining the fight, Bokken eventually falls to the two on one attack and Thrain is left to face both Narius and Adris. But, with a bolt form his crossbow, Narius is able to drop Thrain, and the Barrai, Bokken, and Thrain await their fate as to whom will join their barracks. Tormin gives them Parrag, an elf whom they had actually not talked to before. Castillia, after the fight assumes that they had wanted her to join their barracks.

After that, the bell rings, and having missed breakfast, they need to go and start their first day of classes with courses on Court Etiquette, Second Story Work, Poisons and Antidotes, Demonology as their core courses, but then they could specialize in a few different areas. Bokken chose Assassination and Thievery, Thrain – Curses and Necromancy, and Barrai decided on Conjuring/Summoning and Curses. Bokken had a few other people going into what he was looking at with the likes of Dorin and Castillia and more. But Thrain was the only student to pick Curses for their main focus, and Barrai the only one to pick Conjuring/Summoning.

That’s where the session ended with them finding out that they have two tests in the Tower that will determine most of their grades for the school year, at which point, thematically, they’ll level up.

So behind the DM’s screen a little bit.

This was a fairly scripted session. I knew that most likely the players would quickly figure out that Dorin was the one who had gone through their stuff and probably rough him up or threaten him a little bit. I also had thought maybe it would come to light that they had accused him through Domon of being a spy, but that didn’t happen.

The fight that they were going to have, depending on which barracks they picked it was either going to be hard or deadly, they got hard, which was still deadly at such a low level for them, mainly because of the numbers game.

I gave Cordon her dragons breath feature to use. I probably could have just used a spell to simulate that for her, but thematically it worked and did slightly less damage than the spell.

The fight was fairly standard in that it had an end goal because they were facing off and try to knock down and out their opponents, but the story beat to it was that they were deciding who got to be in their group. And the decision that was it was Parrag was a die roll, there were 8 options so 8 sided die, and it landed on him.

Dorin slipping away while someone was just watching him, that was the one part I wasn’t sure what would happen, I knew that he’d try, though. So I gave him disadvantage on his roll for stealth and he rolled a 15 and a 20, plus two since he’s sneaky, and that was considerably better than Bokken’s 10.

What has been hitting your table? What story are you a part of?

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

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But what would happen if you lost that final fight, the world is now in shambles and everything is going to hell, or the abyss, and sometimes that means literally. Today’s campaign idea takes a look at what happens after the fact, but not to the planet but to those heroes who fought bravely and in the end failed at being able to save the world, they’re all dead, and now they are level 1 characters in the next life, the afterlife. But because the apocalypse has come to their world, this Crystalline Halls of what’s basically Valhalla are starting to crumble and there is evil seeping into a place that shouldn’t have had any.

The story that I’d run with for this game is that because the heroes were the last ones to die, they remember and no more about the actual world. So while there are massive wars between Aasimar and Demons/Devils around them, the players are going to be tasked to find some way to undo what has been done. This is going to be a game about fighting a few small skirmishes, but exploring and finding where in the Crystalline Halls the PC’s can find what they need to turn back time and win the fight against whatever being it was that destroyed the world.

I think that you have several different plot threads that you can have the players run through. The first part would be about finding where the Demons/Devils are coming through into the Crystalline Halls. This would be a stealth mission of sorts, but there can be skirmishes with lesser creatures. Then they would have to explore in the abyss to find out the weaknesses of the being that destroyed the world that they couldn’t defeat before. Finally, they’d need to find a way to turn back time, either from the abyss or in the Crystalline Halls.

That is a fairly standard, end the apocalypse, but you’re going to be running the story in a different setting. I think creating the setting is very important here, because you want the players to feel like what they are doing is because they have specific knowledge, not because they are going to be able to stop the battle that is happening in the Crystalline Halls, if they fail at their mission, they fail and everything is over, there’s no after-afterlife.

I’d even be tempted to play around with the rules of magic a little bit. Only radiant damage works in the Crystalline Halls, but healing is boosted, and as long as a spell doesn’t do necrotic or fire damage, it does radiant damage instead. Also in the Crystalline Halls, anything that brings someone back from the dead doesn’t work, same when travelling in the Abyss, because the characters are technically already dead. However, healing is doubled in the Crystalline Halls, so if you’d heal someone for 6 points of damage, you heal them for 12 instead. Just to keep the characters alive. Now, in the Abyss, healing goes back to normal and spells do their normal things.

Another thing I’d probably add in as well, is that the players at some point in time stumble across a subplot where an Aasimar has been corrupted somehow or has turned evil and they are turning other denizens of the Crystalline Halls into Devils or Demons. You could even, once the players know about this, kind of use it as a timer where if they don’t stop the Aasimar or go back in time by a certain point the Crystalline Halls will have been overrun and all will be lost. It gives a solid branching plot for the narrative, like if the players feel like they won’t be fast enough, they can branch off and solve this problem first. And I’d make it some sort of magical item that the Aasimar has on or something like that which has been corrupted, or it’s a denizen of the Abyss or Hell who is disguised and pretending to be a specific Aasimar and the players need to prove that. Give it a few options there as well and see what direction the players immediately go with. But don’t make this an easy encounter, make it something that the players are either going to have to really race against, taking more risks, or it’s a fight that they’re going to need to prepare for.

Eventually, when the players likely have taken care of it all, and are ready to head back in time to stop the apocalypse from happening, give them some knowledge of the weaknesses of the being and probably some sweet weapons. Make them powerful, really powerful, maybe even give them boons that they can call on. Then send in waves of smaller monsters plus the big being that ended the world before and have an epic fight. Let the players do epic things and let the waves of smaller monsters die and run out, so eventually it’s that big final battle.

Would you play or run a game like this? What sort of story do you have at your table now?

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

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
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