So, what is the premise of SeaFall? As compared to Pandemic Legacy which is built around the mechanics of Pandemic and Risk Legacy being built around Risk, SeaFall is a completely stand alone game that doesn’t tie into any other previous title. The story of SeaFall is that you are pirates who are going out to explore the world (or a small chunk of the sea), looking for the lost leaders of your clan and generally just trying to eventually become the pirate emperor. That’s basically what we know story wise at this point. All of this information is found out in the prologue, so I’m not really spoiling anything that is game central. It looks like a fun game with a ton of moving pieces and something that is going to be more challenging than playing Pandemic Legacy (which we did poorly at, but we knew how to play).

Mechanically, they have it split up into a number of nice different options. You can raid locations for resources, you can buy resources, you can explore (probably getting resources), and you can build in your settlement or upgrade your ships. Each of these actions is split into it’s own guild, so it’s not like you can all of these on a turn. A lot of these actions are built around rolling dice, and building that dice pool can be a bit complicated, but reading the dice, thankfully, is very simple. Alright, so let’s talk a bit more about how the game works. There are two different types of rounds, the first being the winter round. The winter round is when you can get additional money, refresh resources that were getting low, stuff like that. It’s kind of resetting the board so that you’re ready for taking turns during the six summer months. During the summer months the big thing that you get to do are the guild actions. Each guild has three actions (one always being sail), and you get to pick 2 out of the 3 to do. The other big thing that you can do in SeaFall, to help make it easier to complete a milestone or get points is buy an advisor. They can make buying or selling items cheaper, they can make it so that you are better at exploring or better at raiding, or they can make upgrading cheaper. A final nice thing is that with how the turns go, and once you get going, they don’t actually take that long, so you can really get rolling.

Let’s talk about one HUGE negative to this game though. The rules as written are kind of hard to understand to start the game. It took me probably an hour of reading them repeatedly to get exactly what they meant, granted that was during the first time we tried to play the prologue. So don’t let the fact there is a prologue fool you, it teaches you nothing about the actual game, you just get to play the actual game without consequences. So watch the video below, he explains the rules very well, and it’s faster than reading the book. Once I watched the video I was able to remember how to play exactly until we played, so it made it much faster.

So what else do you need to know about this game?

I’m not sure, we’re just starting it out and playing for the second time coming up here in about a week. I’m very stoked for it. If I were to give any more advice about playing the game, it would be, have someone who really knows board games be the person to “control” the game. Let them set it up, let them be in charge of the rules, and really lean on that one person. This game is intimidating for a casual player and there is going to be a learning curve. Also, pay attention to the balance of things. I’ve heard rumors that this game can break down a little bit and that once someone gets behind it is hard to catch up. There seems to be a mechanic in place in the game to help with that, but still, keep an eye on that. You are pirates in this game, but that doesn’t mean you always have to be cutthroat.

I’ll come back once we’re done with the whole game with a review of it and some grades for casual and more serious players, so look for that in a while.

Happy Gaming!

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If you have questions for Nerdologists: Dungeons and Flagons emails them to nerdologists@gmail.com or find us on Facebooka or Twitter! We’ll be doing a recap and Q&A every twenty-five episodes.

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The World of Dungeons and Flagons!

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Our players are:

Ashley – Nimrose the Wood Elf Monk

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Finja the Human Paladin

Clint – Tate the Halfling Bard

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

Please give us reviews and let us know how you listen to the show!

You can find us on iTunes

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Reviews help with the algorithms that allow more people to find our show. Every review you give helps, and we thank you for them! We have three reviews currently on iTunes; once we get five, we’ll be able to see them, and properly thank those who have given us reviews.

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Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
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Though I’m not nearly as much of a gaming aficionado as Peder is, I’ve gotten into board games in a big way during the last couple of years, and I’ve come across several favorites. As I’ve mentioned a time or two, I enjoy cooperative games the most, so those will feature prominently on my list, though a couple of my favorites will show that I do feel a little competitive from time to time.

Lord of the Rings: Board Game

This one is at the top of my list for many (obvious) reasons. Lord of the Rings is pretty much my favorite creative work of all time, and playing this game is basically just a great new way to take another journey through Middle Earth. And as a huge fan of the story, I always find myself getting ridiculously invested in the outcome of this game. Will I save Middle Earth, or will I doom it to be subjugated by Sauron?? Sadly, it’s usually the latter — as Peder mentioned, it’s one of those games in which things are going along swimmingly until they’re…not, and suddenly, all that’s standing between you and defeat is one unlucky dice roll. I love this game for its intensity, its high stakes, its collaborative strategizing, and its story immersion element. As soon as I finish a round, I’m ready to reset the game and play again!

Pandemic

In reality, this one is pretty much tied with the Lord of the Rings game for me. This is another game that I get hopelessly sucked into, no matter how many times I’ve played. The race against time as you try to save the world from being overrun by contagion will never not be exciting to me. Like LOTR, Pandemic ratchets up the tension quickly, and leads you to believe that you’re doing well just before everything falls apart. The difficulty level is *just* short of making this game nigh impossible to win, which, if it were a competitive game, would turn me off to it pretty quickly. As it is, though, this element forces the players to work together at all times, and while it’s important for all players to bring their best strategy to the table, the outcome doesn’t depend solely on one person. That spirit of collaboration and innovation is what keeps me coming back for more.

Pandemic: Legacy

On that note, that’s why I love Pandemic’s spinoff game, Pandemic: Legacy, as much as I do. This game is basically Pandemic on steroids, with even more tension, more possibilities, and more ways for everything to go wrong. Due to the changing nature of this game, it can be played a limited number of times, as the choices you make during each round of this game affect each subsequent round. Which is something I find both terrifying and exciting.

Splendor

As I noted in my post about this game a while back, one of the reasons I love this game is because it’s ~*pretty*~. However, I certainly don’t judge it on aesthetics alone. It’s my favorite competitive game for a reason — for me, it hits that sweet spot of just enough strategy to get my brain working (but not enough to make me feel overwhelmed), and just enough luck involved to keep me on my toes. The jewel-trading theme is unique, and I’m a fan of the Renaissance-y vibe. And as a round of this game is usually fairly short, it’s one that I can play several times through in one sitting — and generally, I want to do so when I play this one, which is a pretty rare occurrence for me!

Hanabi

I’ve written about this game already as well, so I won’t say much about it, but it’s still standing strong as one of my favorite card games. As a cooperative board game, it’s pretty unique, made even more so by the element that allows you to see everyone’s cards but your own. It’s a great example of a game that’s simple and elegant in concept but has a high level of difficulty when played. And like many on my list, it’s highly addicting, and always makes me want to see if we can beat our last high score.

Marrying Mr. Darcy

One thing I love most about this game is that it basically involves nerding out in like, three different ways at once. The premise is more or less what you’d expect from the name — you play as one of six female leads from Pride & Prejudice, and to win, you must make the most advantageous marriage by marrying the suitor who is best…well, suited to you! This is another competitive game that feels challenging without feeling cutthroat (though the zombie expansion pack makes it that way, I suppose??). As a huge P&P fan, I adore the theme of this game, and can’t wait to try out the Emma expansion!

Five Tribes

This one’s a recent addition to my list of favorites, and, like Splendor, has the perfect strategy/luck ratio for me. Also like Splendor, it has a great aesthetic; I love the Arabian Nights-esque theme. And as Peder mentioned in his recent post about this game, it’s about as European-style as they come, in that you’re trying to amass more victory points than all the other players through a variety of means, and in that no one knows how many points they have until the game has ended. I was able to quickly pick up a strategy that works for me with this game, which…may very well be unprecedented in my history as a gamer, actually. And that in and of itself is enough to make me thoroughly enjoy this game!

And that’s my list — for now, at least! Let’s hear from you — what are some of your favorite games? Are there any from my or Peder’s lists that you’d love to try?

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As Peder mentioned in his post earlier this week, Tsuro is the perfect game for starting out a game night; it’s also great for those times when you want to play a board game but don’t have much time, or for introducing non-gamer friends to an unintimidating game.

The object of Tsuro is simple — be the last one standing on the board. To start, each player chooses one of the different colored pawns and places it on any of the tic marks at the edge of the board. The board is essentially one big grid; each turn, players lay down one path tile in front of their pawn, and each tile they lay down in subsequent turns must lead their pawn further along its current path. The path tiles each have a few lines on them that represent possible paths a pawn can take. Once a tile is laid down in front of a pawn, that pawn must follow it to wherever it may end.

Though no two tiles are the same, the game is designed so that the paths on any one tile can match up with the ones shown on any other tile. As the game progresses and players lay down more and more tiles, the paths they create eventually start merging — and affecting other pawns. Pawns must follow the path laid before them no matter what (starting to see the metaphor inherent in this game?), so if a player lays down a tile that connects to another pawn’s path, that path might lead them off the edge of the board, and they’ll then be out of the game. A path could also cause two pawns to collide, in which case, both pawns would then be out.

Players continue to draw tiles and lay them down until all tiles have been drawn and the final tile, known as the dragon tile, is revealed. The person to draw this tile gets first draw from the discarded tiles of the next player to go out of the game (the rest, if any, are then divvied up in order of play amongst the remaining players). After that, the players keep on until only one pawn is left on the board and all others have gone out by running off the edge of the board, colliding with another pawn, or even playing a tile of their own that forces their pawn toward one of these outcomes (this is often how most players meet their end — as more tiles are laid out on the board and fewer are left to play, sometimes the only tile a player has left is one that will cause them to lose the game).

As a game that requires little strategy and a small time investment, Tsuro is a great game for getting a party started, providing a low-key activity at a family gathering, or just getting your board game fix in a quick and relaxing way. What’s your favorite time to play Tsuro?

Casual Grade: A+

Gamer Grade: C

Overall Grade: A

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Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
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Message me directly on Twitter at @Kefka73
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Our players are:

Ashley – Nimrose the Wood Elf Monk

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Finja the Human Paladin

Clint – Tate the Halfling Bard

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

Please give us reviews and let us know how you listen to the show!

You can find us on iTunes

Or on Stitcher

Reviews help with the algorithms that allow more people to find our show. Every review you give helps, and we thank you for them! We have three reviews currently on iTunes; once we get five, we’ll be able to see them, and properly thank those who have given us reviews.

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

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
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To gloss over quickly — the easiest way to run a game is to use pre-made stories found in campaign books. Dungeons & Dragons puts these books out fairly regularly; they tell a single story, and players follow along that storyline, generally taking the characters from early levels to higher levels as they go. This works really well if you want to have a lot of the structure of the world and combats already in place.

But I know that, for a lot of people, myself included, when you start as a DM, you have ideas for stories already in your head, and you want to tell those stories and have the players shape them with you. When I got started, I didn’t want to do one of the campaign books, and I was willing to take the time to create my own world. I found that there are a couple of different ways you can run this type of game: either by playing a campaign or a one-shot.

A campaign is going to run over a long period of time. Characters will grow stronger, relationships will be defined, and backstories will be dug into while the players progress through an epic arc. Something like our Dungeons & Flagons podcast is a great example of a campaign. I have general ideas/stories for large, earth-shaking events and resolutions, which the players and characters are just now starting to find out about, and it is going to take a long time to get through the story, defeat the biggest bad guys, and be the heroes that these characters (or other ones that they roll up as their original ones die off) are meant to be.

A one-shot, on the other hand, is a self-contained story that can take place in about two to five hours. These games are generally much more directed. The players are told at the beginning what their mission will be, and they get to play through that bit of a story. Usually, players don’t roll up their own characters for a one-shot, as character generation can take a couple of hours if you really delve into it. So a DM will come prepared with several different characters that the players can choose from, and those characters then make up the adventuring party that busts into a dungeon to chase out the goblins who have set up camp there, or free a town that is being harried by a harpy. They don’t level up; though you are telling part of the characters’ stories, it’s really only a snapshot.

Both styles have their advantages. A one-shot is great for introducing the game to people who haven’t played before. They can find out if they like it and if they would want to invest the time to join a full-on campaign. It’s also much easier for the DM; you’ll only need to come up with a couple of combats, and some sort of main challenge for your players to overcome. Those elements, along with a small town or small area of land that is really easy to make up on the fly, are all you need for a one-shot.

On the other hand, the advantages of a campaign are that you can tell a story that has much greater depth, and that allows for much more growth of the world and characters in the game. It really allows you to stretch your storytelling muscle a lot more and come up with creative situations to put the players in. You also have the ability to allow the players to pick what happens in the story more, because they can go anywhere in the world you’ve created, and you can put anything you choose in front of them.

So which is better?

Depends on your group. For a group of new players, I’d recommend a short game of some sort, like a one-shot or a story from a campaign book that will last a couple of sessions. That is what I did with the players who make up Dungeons & Flagons. To start, we played a story about assassins trying to solve a mystery that lasted three or four sessions. It was a good way for the players to get their feet wet by starting at a very low level and getting a feel for the mechanics of the game. Alternatively, you can start with a campaign. However, I think one big thing about jumping straight into a campaign, especially with new players, is that you’ll have help them along more. For example, it’s cool to recommend that they roll a nature check about an owlbear they encounter in order to learn some information about it. Or to recommend a perception check when they go into a room where you know there is a trap. You don’t do it all the time, but plan to help the players along from time to time, and be willing to teach.

What prep do I need to do?

For a one-shot, I’d really recommend just going with a story that is pretty simple. Adventurers saving the town from some monster that is hidden away in a cave, tower, dungeon, etc. is really easy to do. Go with a simple setup to for the action — a quick fight against minions, a challenge of some sort, and the boss fight. That’s all you need for a good one-shot.

For a campaign, one of the best spots to start is to ask the players what type of story they would like to play. If all of your players really want to be a bunch of detectives in a city, make a story that’s driven that way; if they want to be explorers of a new world, build that story. You have plenty of room to put your twist on a story that has the potential to last from half a year to multiple years. Then, spend some time going through my first post on this Dungeons & Dragons series about world-building. The main thing is not to overwhelm yourself; keep it simple and let it build slowly over time. Flesh out towns, terrain, and NPCs as you need to, so that even though you’ll need to do some prep before each session, it’ll stay balanced and sane.

If you have specific topics that you’d like to see discussed regarding Dungeons & Dragons, comment below, or let me know on Twitter and I’ll gladly do more articles on the topics that you suggest.

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NPCs, or non-player characters, are the people of note whom your players meet on their journeys. It could be the king of the land, a peddler along the road, or a thief in an underground society. Any character important to your story is going to be an NPC.

What makes an NPC interesting is how it interacts with the players. Does it really want to help them? Is the shop owner going to try to upsell the party when they are looking for clothes? Do they have a bit of history that makes them friendly toward or distrustful of adventurers? Do they need something from the group of adventurers?

These characters really help to give depth to your world. In the Dungeons & Flagons game, I had pretty well fleshed out Lino and Camdell, the two pirate princes the group met (as well as the rest of the princes on the island), and gave them their own desires and characteristics as they interacted with the players. But Jonathan, a guard patrolling Lino’s estate, was made up on the spot, and still added something important to the world of Barbuga.

So how much planning do you need to do for NPCs so they don’t all end up sounding the same, and so they aren’t just cardboard cutouts of characters?

This is something that I’m still trying to balance out, but here are some tips to help you along the way:

Not every NPC needs to have a personality, desires, and motivations all their own. A barkeeper in a small town might have some secret that the adventurers could discover, but doesn’t necessarily need one. The random guard at the castle gate probably doesn’t have specific issues with a more powerful suitor who’s trying to steal the love of his life. For characters who are just there to add a little extra depth and realism, feel free to make up a name for them on the spot, and let them share basic information that they would likely know. For example, the bartender knows how much a drink costs, if there are rooms in his inn, and maybe some gossip. A guard at the gates probably knows what people of importance are in town, if the Queen is holding court today, and other such items. These things will help move the story forward, but aren’t the story themselves.

Now, sometimes you have an NPC who is more important. To flesh out those characters, write up a few simple notes. What are some of the defining traits of their looks or speech? Lino was written up as a short bowling ball of a female dwarf who talks loudly and isn’t shy around delicate matters. What really matters to her? Lino clearly loves sex and her position of power. What does she need? She had a snake problem. Boom. Now you have a character who isn’t Guard #1, but is someone whom you can bring back again, and who feels more fully realized.

Why don’t you do that for all NPCs? And how do you know how many to create the background for?

Don’t do it for all of them; you’ll find yourself going insane. Your players are going to a town of 25,000 people and you have no idea where they will go next or how many people they’ll talk to? Trying to create a background for so many characters would be crazy. Pick the important ones; for example, what does the shopkeeper at the general store sound like, or the blacksmith, or the ruler? Those are the ones whom the players are going to interact with. They might end up spending more time talking to the guy at the gate, but if he isn’t as important to your story, just make him up on the fly.

The town you are creating may be a small one, in which you only need to create two or three important people whom your characters will interact with while there, whereas a larger city might have part of a thieves’ guild that your players go to, and a king, and several different merchants, or many other things. But don’t let a large town overwhelm you, because while you never really know what your players are going to do, they will generally follow the breadcrumbs you leave for them and go meet the people you want them to meet, and usually won’t go off in some random direction that’s way different from the one(s) you’ve prepared for.

And if you do find yourself needing to create a character of importance on the fly, take some notes. Do a better job of this than I do. When you introduce a big-wig, jot down their name, what you are doing for their voice, and what job/title they have in the city. That way, you can use them again in another part of the story and the players will remember them.

I hope these tips will help you as you create your non-player characters for your next session — and if there is anything else you want advice about or would like to know more about, ask away in the comments.

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I was originally introduced to this game on TableTop, Wil Wheaton’s tabletop gaming show. My view of it then and my thoughts after playing it myself are actually surprisingly similar. This game can best be described as one that’s similar to Pictionary, but instead of drawing something, players use a board that shows several dozen images with certain meanings attached to them to express a word or phrase on the card they’ve chosen.

The game uses different colored tokens; using the large green question mark means that you are explaining the main concept of the person, place, thing, phrase, or idea that you’ve chosen from the card. There are also exclamation points that are used to signify sub-concepts, and small colored cubes that can be placed beside other squares to describe an item even more specifically. So, for example, if I picked an easy clue like “teacher,” I would put the question mark down on the occupation square. Then, using the small cubes, I would expand on that idea by placing the cubes beside other squares, such as the one that signifies the arts, or the one for math and science.

This game is very interesting in that it forces the player to think outside of the normal realm that we are used to in games. You have to combine seemingly random clues to express something like Sonic the Hedgehog (male, fictional, and blue could be enough to get the players to guess it), or to try to describe a more complex concept like “absent-minded.” The game does a really good job of challenging the players to think outside the box and figure out how to combine different concepts into a single focused concept.

It does have some of the flaws, however, that come up a lot with party games. Players tend to pick the easiest term, or the funniest, and this will eventually lead to repeats. Also, the game play is very much the same turn after turn. When you get a male character, either historical or fictional, the main concept goes on male, the second one goes on one of the other two, and you end up with a lot of guesses along the same line.

Now, when I played the game, we only played through a limited number of cards, so the pool of ideas would likely expand over time, but just from the handful of cards I saw, you’d almost always start with thing, person, female, or male (or a combination thereof) to describe most concepts. The other flaw I noticed is the fact that sometimes you just get stuck. Sometimes a person has a single way of thinking of something, or feels like they’ve already defined the term well enough (and probably have) even though no one can guess it, and you just end up with the players going in circles, and the person who is trying to make them guess what it really is starts scrounging through the different options to see how they can expand upon it or focus it back in. As they did on TableTop, we played with a “shame” meter — if you felt bad enough about not being able to get people to guess your concept, you would give up at that point. The issue with this is that it doesn’t add any real urgency to the game play, and there’s nothing else really tying people into the game, so it can lose focus from time to time.

Overall, the best way that I can describe how much I enjoyed this game is that it is one that I would like my friends to have so I can play it sometimes but don’t have to invest in it myself. It’s a fun game to play once in a while, but like many party games, it ends up being somewhat repetitive and could lead to a stale playing experience if it’s played too often. This is a good game for applying a mindset that Kristen has and has taught me to think about — the idea that it’s best to quit while you are still having fun. This is the kind of game that could drag on and become boring if you aren’t careful, but if you quit while you’re still enjoying it (which is easy to do, since, with the way we were playing it, there wasn’t a real ending to the game) you’ll have a good time playing it.

Overall Grade: C

Gamer Grade: D

Casual Grade: B

Today, we’re continuing on the topic of board games — Kristen and I host a board game night every second Saturday; our most recent one was this past weekend, and this time, we played Legendary. Legendary is a deck-building game in which you team up with your fellow players to defeat an evil mastermind.

As a deck-building game, Legendary is similar to games like Dominion. But unlike Dominion, it’s played either cooperatively or as one player vs. all the rest (in the latter setup, the single player takes on the role of the Mastermind). As players of Legendary, you are higher-ups in S.H.I.E.L.D and are recruiting your superhero team. You are going up against a mastermind and trying to stop them from completing their evil scheme. In our game, Blade, Captain America, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Elektra, and Iron Fist were the heroes we could recruit. We were going up against The Kingpin as the Mastermind of our game, who wanted to take over the Daily Bugle, and for some reason, we wanted to stop him.

On each turn, the player whose turn it is flips over a villain card and adds that villain to the city. There can be up to five villains in the city before one of them escapes. Next, the player looks at their hand of six cards, which they can use to either recruit other heroes to join their team or play the heroes they already have to fight against a villain who is in the city. Or, if it is a really good turn and they draw well, players can use their cards to fight against the Mastermind. The heroes you buy can combo off of each other to improve how hard you can hit or how much influence you have for recruiting heroes. These are the basics of game play, and you are constantly adding cards to your deck as you go, trying to make it stronger and better so you can build up enough points to punch the Mastermind.

This is a fun game, albeit one that starts off kind of slow. During your first handful of turns, you spend a lot of time building up your deck. Once you’ve done that, the turns start getting longer, but at that point, players can do a whole lot more per turn. In our case, while we did end up defeating the Mastermind, our cards didn’t combo off of each other all that well, so it took a long time to build up enough cards to make something happen. The slow speed of the game, especially early on, is one of its weaknesses. It is so hard to hit the Mastermind that you feel like you might as well have skipped the first five rounds and just added heroes to your deck.

However, you are playing with superheroes, which is a lot of fun. As someone who has read a lot of recent comic books, I know who so many of the heroes in the game are, and in our case, I noticed that we ended up building a team of heroes who were all somehow related to Hell’s Kitchen (Daredevil’s area of New York and the area that Kingpin often has his hands in), which made our session work well thematically. And all of the friends in the group we played with are as nerdy as we are, so we were able to talk about recent movies and shows featuring the heroes from our game, and got to give some of the group a lesson on characters who were new to them, like Iron Fist.

But even though the game revolves around heroes, the gamemakers missed out on the one thing that could have made the pace of play a non-issue. If they had built in a story element to the game, you wouldn’t even notice that the first few turns are slow. As it is, there is a Mastermind who can do a little bit, but often doesn’t make all that much sense story-wise, and the scheme, while cool, is always the same for a big part of the game. If the Mastermind could change tactics and take different actions, it would feel like you are playing out a comic book story. For example: the group stops the Kingpin at first, but he comes up with a new plan, and they have to stop him again as it builds up to his ultimate scheme. It would be a lot of fun that way, would teach players about some of the bad guys from Marvel, and would make the game more engaging for those who don’t know as much about the characters and how they interact within the world of the comics.

Overall, I really do like this game. It’s built for someone like me, though that means it wouldn’t necessarily be as appealing to a casual player. I love the complexity of the combos and how the heroes interact. However, the combos in this game are more complex than those in Dominion, and while you can help your teammates strategize how best to play their turn, I think that Dominion is more fun overall, and certainly faster to play. But as I said, I really do enjoy this game. I have fun playing it and figuring out how to build the best deck of cards that I can. But there is a definite learning curve and a steep time commitment involved with playing this game. It’s one that’s probably best to play with a group of more serious gamers, or with people who really like games that are built more on logic than on luck.

Overall Grade” B-

Gamer Grade: B+

Casual Grade: D+

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As Peder mentioned in his post, Pandemic is one of the more well-known cooperative games, and with good reason. It’s a well-balanced, fast-paced, and challenging game that you just can’t help but get invested in whenever you play. In the world of Pandemic, there are four deadly diseases that are threatening to wipe out humanity, and it’s up to the players to stop that from happening. Apocalyptic scenario? Cooperative strategizing? Epic science? Sign me up!

To start the game, each player draws their role card (Medic, Operations Expert, Researcher, etc.), and everyone starts out from Atlanta (naturally, as this is where the real-life CDC is located). From there, everyone works as a team to figure out the best gameplan for taking out all four diseases before they outbreak and take over the map.

As with many of the best collaborative games, there is only one way to win Pandemic, but a bunch of ways to lose. The players have to clear every single disease cube off the board to beat the game, but lose conditions include having too many outbreaks, running out of disease cubes for any one disease, and running out of city cards (the last being the most common cause of a team’s downfall).

Because of this, the difficulty level always feels really high, but never so high that your prospects seem hopeless. In fact, what often happens is that you’re playing along, with everything going reasonably well and with the possibility of eradicating a couple of diseases on the horizon, when suddenly, one small thing goes wrong and sets off a chain reaction that there’s no coming back from. Rather than being discouraging, though, this common scenario only makes you more determined to play the game again and win this time, using what you learned from the last round to keep disaster from striking (at least in the same way twice).

One thing I like most about Pandemic is that it’s like it takes all the good parts of Risk and gets rid of the things that can make that game annoying (to me, at least). You’re trying to gain control of the world map, but you’re wiping out disease instead of spreading your soldiers too thin. You get to travel around the board mowing down enemies, but you aren’t trying to take down your friends in the process; you’re all working toward a common goal and putting your heads together to create a more effective strategy than someone could do alone. You don’t have to spend ages waiting for someone else to complete their turn, because all players are involved and engaged every step of the way. And most importantly, it doesn’t take hours and hours to play through — you can easily do two or three rounds in an evening, if you so choose. And you probably will, because it’s a ridiculously addicting game.

If you’re new to collaborative board gaming, this one is a great place to start. It’s high-stakes, gets everybody using their brains and working together, and has an exciting premise that keeps you coming back for more. Give this one a try; I hope you’ll love it as much as I do!

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