What's playing at your table?

[daoist]

Cut out the middle man, buy them on eBay direct from the seller. Then at most, only one person gets ripped off instead of two.

Ebay is great, so is cardshark.com. If you're not interested in chase-rares you can get a playset of any rare for like $3, uncommons $2, and infinity commons for $1.

[Gretyl]

All I'm saying is that if you like the game, you should reward the makers instead of stealing it. Occasionally proxying is just fine, especially when testing for tournaments. But if you're going to make a habit of running lots of proxies all the time, you just need to man-up and redesign your decks to not need those cards, or go buy them.

Local gaming stores are really hurting, especially now. Buying new cards helps. After market cards helps even more.

If his decks were comprised of nothing but proxies, I'd agree with you. I don't think that's what he's saying. He's still trying to get all his fun out of the dollars he's already spent.

[daoist]

No, I understand that. But he can get his fun out of those dollars by using other cards he already has.

In effect, he's choosing not to get his fun out of the dollars he spent, he wants to get them from dollars he should be spending.

Combined with the fact, as said above, that most cards are ridiculously cheap on ebay or cardshark, he should just pony up the Washingtons to fill his collection out.

[Talenos]

why not just play with index card and use all proxies? That's the socialist approach.

[Gretyl]

Poor people can't afford index cards, you insensitive bastard.

[Talenos]

I thought it was because they were either too lazy to write on all their cards or too stupid to be able to write down what the cards do.

[Gretyl]

No, you're thinking of Indian immigrants.

[Little Bobby Tables]

power grid is awesome. I've only played one game, but it was tremendous fun. I am really into the economic sim / resource control games, though.

[nippletwister]

That version of the game Dao talked about piqued my interest. It's like, the ONLY way I'd get back into magic.

[daoist]

Chicago is chock-full of places to draft. If you ever wanted to try it out you certainly could. Luckily there's enough places you can probably pick a night rather than being stuck with whatever the schedule is for the only store in town. If you do, tell them you've never drafted before when you sign up so the judge can provide better instructions.

[Reagraham Lincool]

Sounds like you play with shitty people.

Why do you say that?

Any time metagaming threatens gaming, you're in one of two situations:
- you're playing Werewolf! on ST
- you're playing with shitty people

In my case, those are the same situation, but I thought I'd be generous and adjust for those who still like ST's Werewolf!

Well I mean what are they supposed to do? Pretend they don't know everything my deck is going to do ahead of time?

[Reagraham Lincool]

All I'm saying is that if you like the game, you should reward the makers instead of stealing it.

Well steal is an absurdly loaded word given that their cards are actual physical objects and I haven't walked out of any stores with boosters in my pockets. But anyway, does that apply to movies and music and every other media that we all "steal" regularly? I think I've rewarded the makers more than enough for their paper and ink and artificial scarcity.

Occasionally proxying is just fine, especially when testing for tournaments. But if you're going to make a habit of running lots of proxies all the time, you just need to man-up and redesign your decks to not need those cards, or go buy them.

Why do I need to do that?

Local gaming stores are really hurting, especially now. Buying new cards helps. After market cards helps even more.

Well I do feel bad for them, but I'm not interested in subsidizing them. It's not my job to cover up the shitty parts of capitalism at my own expense so that other people can do things I'm not interested in.

[daoist]

We wouldn't have all of these kickass games to play if everyone proxied them up whenever they wanted. You are attacking the very hobby celebrated by this thread. So that explains our concern.

[Gretyl]

Our concern? This is your tempest in my teapot, to be clear.

[Gretyl]

Wait you have power grid?

Next game night that's going in your bag, mister. And we're going to play that even if it means there's no time left for touching dicks later.

Sorry I missed this. No, I don't have Power Grid. A friend does. All I have are the expansions I mentioned up thar...

I keep trying to talk him into coming, but he's bein' a bit of a bitch.

[Reagraham Lincool]

We wouldn't have all of these kickass games to play if everyone proxied them up whenever they wanted. You are attacking the very hobby discussed in this thread. So that explains our concern.

I have actually spent large amounts of money on this game so the categorical imperative is a terrible way to criticize my behavior. If everyone spent what I have spent on Magic cards, Wizards of Coast would be wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. This is not an argument you can win with me. There is nothing you're going to type that's going to convince me that my choice to play Magic again, which is totally contingent upon not spending any more money on it anyway, entitles anyone to any more of my money.

I'm not saying no one should ever buy new cards. I am saying that if the choice is between me not buying cards and me not playing Magic ever again, there's no contest there. No one is out a potential customer from my proxying. I am not a potential customer.

[daoist]

Wait you have power grid?

Next game night that's going in your bag, mister. And we're going to play that even if it means there's no time left for touching dicks later.

Sorry I missed this. No, I don't have Power Grid. A friend does. All I have are the expansions I mentioned up thar...

I keep trying to talk him into coming, but he's bein' a bit of a bitch.

Bring up the touching dicks to sweeten the deal for him.

[begin_the_begin]

I've been picking up sets for HeroScape lately. The game is a little simplistic from what I was hoping for, and I'm not a big fan of their anachronistic, mish-mash of characters.

However, it has been a ton of fun creating 3D maps, and making up new games to play on the boards. I'm currently working on developing a Zombie army game using the HeroScape sets. Great fun.

Also: anyone know where I can pick up a bunch of HeroScape tiles/terrain for cheap (besides eBay)?

[daoist]

That's about it. Most game stores mark the hell up out of everything, so if you want cheap, you got eBay.

[Gretyl]

I'm so gahdamn magnanimous that the wife's playing 4th seat in a game of 6-epidemic Pandemic & I'm sitting out. Yeah, you heard it right: I'm such a hardcore boardgamer that I'm not boardgaming.

[Gretyl]

Better believe I'm collecting victory points for that!

[daoist]

I need a bag to hold carcassone tiles. Suggestions?

[Gretyl]

Shit, I've wasted my weekend: [dominfo.py] [Dominion.xls]

[Gretyl]

I need a bag to hold carcassone tiles. Suggestions?

Buy the cheapest reusable bag from HyVee or get a slightly bigger dicebag-for-dicebags from Mayhem.

[daoist]

those seem too big / too small, respectively.

[Gretyl]

I'm sure nerds somewhere have solved this problem.

[Talenos]

Crown Royal bag?

[Gretyl]

It'd help if you removed the Crown Royal first!

[daoist]

the CR bag is such a cliche, I'd rather avoid it. Right now I'm leaning towards buying fabric and pestering one of the hapless seamstresses I know into assembling one for me.

[nippletwister]

Crown Royal Reserve bag?

[Tas]

Just a heads-up - Mayhem should be getting Dominion this week, if not tomorrow. Get it. It's very very good.

[Gretyl]

The expansion's due out in June, too!

[daoist]

I've got a copy reserved at mayhem. I don't think it'd be a stretch to assume they'll buy a few extra copies for you mere mortals as well.

[begin_the_begin]

Just a heads-up - Mayhem should be getting Dominion this week, if not tomorrow. Get it. It's very very good.

Saw Dominion at Mayhem Des Moines last week. I'm wondering... why are all the board game prices different in Des Moines? I noticed some stuff like HeroScape sets were $65 in Des Moines, as opposed to $40 in Ames. And then some other stuff was actually cheaper.

[Gretyl]

They probably order stuff in different quantities and serve different markets.

[daoist]

My dominion storage plan is coming together. Gotta make a trip to staples for some R&D.

[Gretyl]

O rly? Is this your sleeve concern or are you too fancy to use the insert or both?

[daoist]

Yeah both. I think my plan will prove even better once the expansion comes out.

[begin_the_begin]

They probably order stuff in different quantities and serve different markets.

I was sort of expecting it to act like a chain retailer and have equal pricing... as in going into one Mayhem gives you the same results as the other. I can understand ordering in different quantities, and products being adjusted a few bucks, but I'm mostly wondering about the justification of the three copies of a HeroScape set in Des Moines priced at $65 each, as opposed to the single copy in Ames priced at $40. And don't they transfer stuff over to the other store when they need it? Is the $65 HeroScape set suddenly $40 if Ames asks for it?

[daoist]

The difference is they can probably get $65 for a heroscape game in des moines and can only get $40 for it in ames.

[begin_the_begin]

The difference is they can probably get $65 for a heroscape game in des moines and can only get $40 for it in ames.

Right. So if they want to mark the product up well above the MSRP, why doesn't Ames price the game at $65 on the chance that someone would buy it there for that price, and then when the Des Moines copies sell out, move that product down there? That way Ames can at least keep up the illusion of stock in the meantime.

I'm guessing it might be the case that the games in each store are priced by different people. I also don't know how interconnected the two stores are. I thought Tas might be able to shed light on the subject.

[daoist]

Most places look about $45ish for heroscape. My guess is that it's not selling well in ames, thus the discount.

[LucasPukus]

Slightly on topic, the game store we frequent charges nearly 40% markup on everything. Hard to resist the online market.

[LucasPukus]

The expansion's due out in June, too!

Ive seen some of the expansion cards but now I can't remember them. Shoot. Worthless post, sorry.

[Gretyl]

My copies of Envoy & Black Market have shipped, so woot on that.

[daoist]

Do we know what the rules will be like in the 5-6 player version of Dominion? If it's just more piles of cards then we can manage that with the current game too.

[Gretyl]

No, those rules haven't been released yet. We can still run 2 tables if I bring my set.

[daoist]

Eh, I don't think we should want to have games going in parallel. I think it'd be better party-wise to have a variety of games to play, so if not everyone wants to play dominion, there's alternatives. And if everyone wants to play, we can do it serially. My only thought was that if there's about 6 of us there, say early in the night, and we all wanted to play, it'd be cool.

We could always just make shit up. Like put in a few more victory cards and a couple more piles.

P.S. I saw in IRC you said you're bringing power grid. I <3 U 4 EVA

[Gretyl]

Well, if we just want to ad-hoc a 6-player variant, I'd say we play with 12 kingdom piles, 15 cards per Estate/Duchy/Province/Garden and up the 3-pile ending to 4-piles. One discrepancy we'd have to resolve is my cards are still unsleeved.

Also, how's your ultimate storage plan coming together? This may save you some time.

[daoist]

That's a hell of a lot fancier than I'm going to make.

And I think we can do 6 players off of one set of dominion, there are extra victory cards, aren't there?

[Gretyl]

No, there's exactly 12 Gardens/Duchies/Provinces, and only 12+(3*4)=24 Estates.

[LucasPukus]

Power grid is a great game. I still prefer stone age, but it is a close second.

[Gretyl]

Have you played with any of the expansions LP? I have the China/Korea maps and plant deck 2. I've only played one game of each (i.e., both at the same time), but they definitely rewrite your expectations of how the game will play out.

[daoist]

No, there's exactly 12 Gardens/Duchies/Provinces, and only 12+(3*4)=24 Estates.

I think it'd be fine to just throw the gardens in and call it OK as far as the estate cards go.

[Little Bobby Tables]

I got the chance to play BSG last night. I enjoyed it a lot, though I like Arkham Horror better. Starting the game at 11 PM didn't help.

[LucasPukus]

I've not played with the expansions, though the group does have them.

BSG from 11pm-245 AM. NOT COOOL. That game sucks with 5 people. I guess I'm going to complain a bit, but at our table we had two people that wanted to go home and one person that was literally falling asleep between his turn and the next and one guy who wanted to just keep playing, despite the cost. So we kept playing, even after I mentioned that we had dogs that usually go outside every night around 10 and were probably experiencing bladder discomfort. Then the fucker that insisted we keep playing was a cylon, but didn't reveal until the end. MFer, he had the power to fucking kill the humans with me and end the game that much faster. arrrghhh. I know it sucks to have people leave your game midway through, or even 3/4 of the way through, but sometimes you just have to call it, especially at 2:45 AM when everyone else is falling asleep.

[Gretyl]

one person that was literally falling asleep between his turn and the next and one guy who wanted to just keep playing, despite the cost

Why is it that every gaming group must contain these two kinds of players? Who the fuck are they?!

[daoist]

we should just play more interesting games.

[Tas]

But you're both guys... you get excited to play, then pass out at the table...

[daoist]

fyi, boardgames2go reviewed dominion in #88, on board games reviewed it in #31 (iirc)

[daoist]

on board games thought it was so-so, but I think they didn't see the fundamental utility of the action cards, dismissing them as nonessential. (dear god, did they play several games buying mostly treasure and kingdom cards?). bg2g seems to have liked it.

[daoist]

Step 2 of my storage solution is done, now for step 3 of 1000.

[Gretyl]

Get her to open the box!

[daoist]

my dominion promo cards shipped!

[Gretyl]

!!! Enjoy!

Envoy's got a nice early-late game spread to it, while I've yet to make up my mind about Black Market.