New Games For Old: Modern Alternatives to... Trivial Pursuit

Another yuletide season brings another opportunity to trash a family favourite. This year our attention turns to the notoriously tedious and age-unfriendly Trivial Pursuit, the classic game which test how many pointless facts have accumulated in one's brain like the filth in Bender's neck.

Picture of gold-plated pies by Martin Stever

To be fair, my dispute with Trivial Pursuit is not to do with the questions; while they do a poor job of levelling the playing field between generations of the family, they are otherwise perfectly fine. The real problem is the board itself; it provides few genuine questions, needlessly draws out the gameplay, and creates frustration when six correct answers in a row gets you nothing, and then the next team gets pie for a single lucky guess.

Here's one cost-free suggestion to improve Trivial Pursuit: throw away the board and die, and just ask each other a pre-determined number of question cards, keeping the score on a piece of paper.

If, on the other hand, you'd like to try some genuinely new games, here's a few family-friendly trivia games for which I've already taken the bullet on your behalf. You're quite welcome.

Bezzerwizzer

First out of the doors is Bezzerwizzer, a somewhat-popular game originating from Germany and available for some time from The Works in the UK. The game is to commended for its bold attempts to introduce actual player agency to a trivia game, while removing the pointless die-rolling. To determine the category in which they will answer questions, players draw four tiles from a bag containing 20; they can then arrange these four tiles according to how much a correct answer will score (from 1 to 4). Thus, players can maximise the benefit of their strongest categories, and minimise the consequences of drawing a weak category. Additionally, players can swap categories with another once per round, and try to answer a competitor's question twice per round.

Picture by Virre Linwendil

All of these innovations are clear improvements on the basic trivia game formula. However, this game has a fatal flaw - the questions are just too easy. I do not say this to brag - my co-players also rarely dropped a question, even in categories of which we profess no knowledge. While the game is to be commended for its brevity by comparison with Trivial Pursuit, it will rarely exceed two rounds; the loser can often be determined by a single dropped question.

Overall, then, a bold attempt, but not one I can wholeheartedly recommend.

Timeline

Next up, we have not one game but an entire franchise from boardgame mega-publishers Asmodee. Timeline consists of a number of inter-compatible tins, each containing around 100 small cards. These cards are two-sided; the side dealt facing the players shows some sort of event or notable work, while the reverse shows the same, with the addition of the date. The game begins with a single card placed with its date showing; the first player must guess whether their card occured before or after that single, seed card. They place the card, and turn it to discover the truth; if they are correct, the card leaves their hand (the winner being the first to empty their hand), and if not, it is replaced. The next player acts similarly; in this case, their card may be before, after, or in between the cards already placed. In this way, a long row of chronological events is laid down, and as they are, the time intervals become narrower; this is a game which starts easy but gets surprisingly difficult as it continues. This natural difficulty curve also allows for easy difficulty adjustment; to make the game harder, just deal larger hands.

This game has an even simpler ruleset than Trivial Pursuit; plays quicker; has easily adjustable difficulty

(allowing for handicapping of older players); and even has a measure of strategy, as the player may choose which order to try their luck with their cards. It rewards good guesswork over specific knowledge; this may be a positive or negative factor, depending on one's preferences. Although a bit of a one-trick pony (as it is only concerned with history, albeit within a variety of categories), it's not a bad game at all.

Wits and Wagers

And finally, we turn to the heavyweight of new trivia games, Wits and Wagers, winner of awards ranging from Mensa Mind Games to Xbox Magazine Editor's Choice. This game is about as far from Trivial Pursuit as you can get while still falling within the category of trivia games. The board has been replaced by a baize of odds; pies replaced with betting chips; and specific knowledge replaced with numerical estimation. To explain the latter; each question has a numerical answer, which is unlikely to be known specifically

Picture by Antony Hemme

(e.g. the annual weight of potato consumption per capita in the United States). Players each write down a guess; these guesses are arranged on the betting felt (with the median answer in the middle, giving the lowest odds); and players make up to two bets on the correct answer. Winners get chips according to the odds and their original bet; losers lose their chips (except for the two basic betting chips, which are never lost). The game plays easily (you can start playing without even explaining the rules in advance), and the betting mechanism effortlessly creates high tension, moments of elation, and groans of disappointment. As a party game, this one justifies its success.

As a quiz game, however, its not quite so easy to recommend. By its very nature, it rewards good (and/or lucky) guesswork; this helps level the playing field, but actual knowledge is devalued.

Conclusions

I come away from this feeling that there is not yet any good trivia board game. Combining specific knowledge and player agency are never going to be easy, but I'm sure there are better ways. Bezzerwizzer was definitely on to something, but if anything it goes too far in allowing players to play to their strengths. Perhaps a dice game, with one side per question category, a couple of rerolls, and points per question equal to the sides of that category?

My personal favourite of the games here? From a trivia angle, probably Timeline - it has scope for both specific knowledge and good estimation. In a more boisterous and convivial setting, however, Wits and Wagers is a winner.

New Games For Old: Modern Alternatives to... Yahtzee

Were you ever a child? If so, were you ever subjected to the mindless tedium of Yahtzee? (The dice game, not the video game critic, that is.) The answer is that you probably were. But never fear. It gets better.

Yahtzee stands as one of the quintessential children's games of almost-pure-luck masquerading as strategy.

Picture by J Weintraub

At least such non-games as Snakes and Ladders or Candyland have the decency to be honest about their total lack of anything resembling strategy or real player agency, and so are appropriately restricted to children. Yahtzee, the game in which you roll dice, try to get whatever is most probable given your initial roll, and always take whichever result is clearly the least probable by the end of turn, is a game I have witnessed being played by teenagers and, shockingly enough, actual adults.

But still... there's something to be said for rolling a bunch of dice, choosing how and when to push your luck, cursing the dice gods, laughing at others' misfortune, and having the whole thing over with in a short period of time. So which modern dice-rollers can deliver more game with (if possible) even more dice rolling?

King of Tokyo

So successful it's verging on being a mainstream game itself, King of Tokyo is the game of giant creatures attacking Tokyo and each other through with the medium of giant, or at least overweight, dice. Designed by Richard Garfield (probably most famous for Magic: The Gathering), this is a game with huge and obvious advantages over its ancestor. For one thing, the game has more variety; rather than just trying to get specific combinations of numbers, the dice of King of Tokyo are number 1-3, with the other faces depicting a claw, a lightning bolt, and a heart. On their turn, players roll six dice, then reroll whichever they choose up to two

Picture by Gary James

times. The numbers have the more familiar dice mechanics - roll three of any kind and get the number of points on that triplet's faces, with further of the same kind adding an additional point. Where it gets interesting are the other faces. While the points system provides a method of racing your opponents to victory, claws smack your opponents about - this is a game of direct confrontation, not just abstract points accumulation. You can win the game by reaching 20 points first, or by eliminating all your rivals, and each outcome is as likely as the other. Meanwhile, hearts repair that damage, and thunderbolts provide "energy" - essentially the game's currency, which allows monsters to buy cards. Some of these cards provide immediate rewards; others provide special abilities, creating asymmetry between players as well as a measure of long-term planning. These simple mechanics provide much more of a game, with a variety of possible strategies (loosely falling into points or damage strategies, but with variety in both), and replayability facilitated by the subset of cards available in each game. Expansions have been released to give further variety, each retaining simple mechanics. While still a game with a high luck factor, it combines both meaningful push-your-luck mechanics and an amount of forward planning to provide players a decent amount of agency and strategy. Plus, giant monsters.

Elder Sign

Alternatively, maybe you're tired of competition anyway. Perhaps you view dice in a different way; since their result is ultimately arbitrary, it may make more sense to compete with the uncaring universe rather than the other players. In that case, you might want to look at the range of cooperative dice games available.

Picture by Leone Fenzi

Elder Sign is one of the most popular of these. Though sometimes referred to as "Arkham Horror Lite", it really has nothing in common with its cousin beyond theme and a reliance on chance. In this game, players are racing to acquire arcane knowledge before an ancient evil awakens; they do so by completing a number of tasks, each of which require certain specific dice results. As with King of Tokyo, the dice faces are unique, but have less intrinsic meaning (the Terror symbols have side effects in specific tasks, and magnifying glasses are cumulative, but otherwise differences are purely thematic). Players can acquire objects and spells to improve their dice rolls or gain additional dice, and even have certain special effects (such as eliminating monsters, or opening up high-risk high-reward otherwordly areas). 

Players who do not complete the task on the first roll may reroll, but sacrifice a die to do so, and may only hold over a single die from their first roll; in practice, this makes it difficult to complete the task if the player hasn't succeeded within the first couple of rolls. The game has some other issues; for example, as a fulfilled task gives additional resources, but failures use up resources without replacing them, there is a tendency to "snowball" and either keep winning or keep losing. This problem is not fully solved by the game's market mechanic to buy resources. Long-term strategy plays a fairly minor role, and overall the game suffers from too many rules for the degree of tactical thinking it provides. Nonetheless it's a fun light co-op with a theme that appeals to many, and digital versions exist to try it out for the price of a fancy coffee.

Escape: The Curse Of The Temple

But Elder Sign is far from the be-all and end-all of dice-rolling cooperative games. If you want a game with tighter mechanics, shorter playing time, and a hell of a lot more energy, try Escape: The Curse Of The Temple. Here, players each have their own handful of dice, and roll them to create combinations which open up new rooms of a temple, move between those rooms, and claim the gems therein. Each time a die face is used for an action, the die must be rerolled. The more gems claimed, the easier it is to leave the temple... and the game is only won if all players successfully leave.

Picture by the author

So what's the catch? Elder Sign has an ancient evil creeping closer to awakening turn-by-turn. "Escape" has no turns at all. Players roll their dice as fast as they can; the entire game is in real time, with a strict ten minute limit. If anyone is still left behind when that time is up, everybody loses. To make life even harder, dice have "black skull" faces - roll this result, and the die is locked, useless until a golden skull is used to release it. Players in the same room can combine dice for bigger rewards, which is essential to get enough gems at higher player numbers; crucially, other players can use their golden skulls to release the dice of other players. Since a handful of black skulls induces total paralysis, this is an essential manoeuvre. The result is a madcap game of players screaming things like "we just need two more keys" or "please will somebody give me just a single gold", desperately watching the gems stack up as the timer runs down, rolling their own dice as quickly as possible while cajoling their companions. It's like the Crystal Maze, only all the players are doing the challenge at the same time, and all are going to get locked in if any one of them fails the task.

This is probably the most stressful game you will ever play. But it's also a whole lot of fun. Simple mechanics and the ten-minute time limit keep it short and sweet, accessible to beginners, but stimulating for anyone. Definitely recommended.

Lord of the Rings:Nazgul - the Wallenstein mashup variation

 Dear friends, in my last missive I laid out my case for Lord of the Rings: Nazgul. Today, I suggest a way to make an unfairly maligned game better still. It does, however, require a rather special item; the cube tower from a copy of Wallenstein (or, failing that, Wallenstein's Japanese retheme, Shogun; not to be confused with the Milton Bradley game Shogun, now known as Ikusa, which gave Lord of the Rings: Nazgul its auction mechanic).

Essentially, this variant simply switches the cup and its cube-drawing mechanic with the more exciting tower-drop of Wallenstein. Not only is this mechanic more physically compelling, but also allows faster combat and greater potential for unexpected outcomes.

Play the game exactly as usual, with the following changes:

Setup

Optionally at setup, seed the tower with a few Free Peoples Armies (returning any that fall through to the supply). I would suggest 2-3 per difficulty level you are playing at above Easy. This will have a small effect in adjusting starting difficulty.

Battles

In general, battles are treated normally, except that the entire location is determined at once using the cube tower, and cubes stay in the tower between rounds (rather than the cup being emptied again).

As normal, all players present at a location decide how many troops they will commit to the ensuing battle. These cubes are taken from the players' army trackers. Players must always commit their Nazgul cube, if they have it. Select cubes for the opposition as normal (i.e. leave Free Peoples Armies and Hero trackers where they are, and pick a number of cubes equal to the respective positions on the track). Select Heroes using cards as normal, and remove cubes of Free Peoples Armies if the total Terror of Nazgul present is greater than Valor of the Heroes.

Now, instead of placing cubes in the cup, throw all cubes into the tower. Thus, in this variant, draw limits mean nothing, and contributing Nazgul fight simultaneously. Cubes which fall through to the tray are treated as if they had been pulled from the cup. Follow damage assignment as normal with these cubes.

This battle didn't go particularly well for those plucky Nazgul

If some Nazgul cubes become stuck in the tower (and they probably will sooner or later), then some Nazgul will not be available to be returned to players. Those cubes which do fall through and are present belong to the players in the battle according to this turn's play order; i.e. if the second and third player this round have contributed to the battle, but only one Nazgul cube has fallen through the tray, then it belongs to the second player. The Witch Lord takes lowest priority. Cubes stuck in the tower thematically represent Nazgul and monster packs drawn away on other minor tasks at the bidding of their dark lord, and will return at some unexpected moment to take the heroes by surprise. Just because a player is without their cube, that does not prevent them sending their armies to a location to battle as normal; the only restriction is that they won't be able to enter a Nazgul cube into the battle.

If there are more Nazgul cubes present than players (which is entirely possible, particularly when there are Nazgul cubes stuck in the tower from previous battles but only a single Nazgul in the current battle), then the extra Nazgul cubes belong to whoever is at the battle but currently without their personal Nazgul cube; again, if more than one player qualifies, then precedence follows the current turn order. For instance, in a four-player game where players who are currently first and third in the turn order are without their Nazgul cubes, a single excess Nazgul cube belongs to the player first in the turn order. The third player will have to wait a little longer for their cube to re-enter play. If there are more Nazgul cubes that players present at that battle, then the extra cube(s) belong to those not at the battle in turn order priority; these have sneakily sent their forces to one battle but made a surprise appearance at this one (thus reclaiming some of the glory they will have lost while sojourning in the tower). Again, the Witch Lord takes lowest priority. A player entering the battle as an extra Nazgul cube contributes battle damage as normal, and receives favor as normal (despite not having sent any armies). Thus those who lose their Nazgul cube, and hence have been at a disadvantage, will have some of that disadvantage repaid when they return. If all players have their cubes, then the extra cube represents the return of the Witch Lord, who will now be available again.

More player armies may leave the tower than entered it; these contribute their damage as normal, and also become available if they survive; thus it is possible to end a battle with more forces than you started with (as forces which had previously gone AWOL make surprise attacks on the field of battle). If more cubes of the "good guys" fall out then went in, then that's fine too. Damage is given to Free Peoples Armies as normal (i.e. on the track on the board); extra "good guy" cubes do not need to be killed (but do contribute their damage to the Nazgul forces).

If more Heroes fall out of the tower then went it (and hence there are more Hero cubes than cards), then you must provide further Hero cards (from hand or from the deck). These Heroes are immediately added to the battle; their Valor has no effect, but Hero Calls still function as normal and can draw one more Hero to the battle. As with extra Free Peoples Armies, these extra heroes do not affect the number needed to defeat the area (Hero cubes are still tracked on the location track), but do contribute their damage, and priority order for taking damage follows the normal rules combining all Heroes present.

This battle went rather better.

Once the damage done by both sides has been calculated from the cubes present, Hero/Free Peoples Army tracks are reduced as normal; slain player army cubes are returned to the supply. Favour and VPs are split among all contributing Nazgul irrespective of their level of contribution (rounding up if uneven, as normal), though they must have contributed at least one cube to the battle (which may include their own Nazgul cube).

Nazgul cubes are returned to their owners, as indicated above. Surviving player armies are placed back on player tracks. If more than one player has contributed to the battle, cubes are divided evenly between contributors; first split Orcs, then Trolls, then Mumakil. Do not round up; only the cubes surviving are available. Players may negotiate, with all final decisions being made by the contributor who is nearest the beginning of the current turn order; however, no player can have more than one cube than the worst-off player. Once one player has a cube, they may not take a second until all players present have received at least one, and so forth.

Redraw actions

In case of game effects which cause redraw actions: pick up any cubes which are in the tray, and throw them back into the tower, thus redoing the “draw”.

Difficulty comparison

By comparison to the standard game rules:

• Battles move faster as there is no draw limit; I initially thought this would make the game easier for the players, but...
• Nazgul do tend to spend some time in the tower (and the Witch Lord will frequently be unavailable); with the addition of the surprise Heroes, these changes more than compensate for the quicker battle resolution.
• Generally, this variant is "swingier" and more random, and also I would say is more difficult.

So there you have it. If you are lucky enough to have access to both a cube tower and a copy of Lord of the Rings: Nazgul, have at it, and see if you find it improves the game as much as I have.

In Defence Of... Lord Of The Rings: Nazgul

Lord of the Rings: Nazgul, published by Wizkids (no comment), is a game which attracted a startling level of opprobrium for such a high-profile release under a beloved license. This game is not intended to be a review in the traditional sense, and I will only cover the game's structure itself in the briefest of ways. Instead, this article will address the major areas of complaint... and suggest why the game might be worth your time after all...

The game itself

Picture by the author

Lord of the Rings: Nazgul (henceforth LotR:N) is a "semi-cooperative" game wherein each player
takes the persona of a Ringwraith, simultaneously striving to frustrate do-gooding heroes while competing for the favour of the great lord Sauron.

This is not a simple game, but I shall try to be brief. Player Nazgul must bring themselves and their armies to the battlegrounds of each of three threads of the Lord of the Rings saga, trying to eliminate the armies and heroes of the "good guys" at a variety of Middle Earth locations. Each round also presents a number of smaller mission cards, providing optional battlegrounds which may or may not be worth the focus of the players.

Players then enter a blind auction, highly reminiscent of the auction system of the old MB Gamemaster game Shogun (now known as Ikusa, I believe). Players use the "favour" they have accumulated in a variety of ways; these may be non-competitive (e.g. buying new army units), "winner-takes-all" (e.g. the bid to decide turn order), or auctions where there are consolation prizes for those who do not bid the most (e.g. bidding for Cards of Power).

With their forces and other assets arrayed, players then deploy to the various battle areas and mission cards available this turn, and do battle. Combat is a bit too complex to detail here, but in brief, the Ringwraiths and their armies will face blue cubes (representing generic Free Peoples armies) and white cubes representing "heroes". Players must deploy a Hero card they will face for each white cube present. Each player will have at least one Hero card drawn from the deck which he/she may play to the battle they are attending... alternatively, if players do not fulfil the Hero requirement from their own hands, the gaps are filled by Heroes drawn blind from the deck. Nazgul may then deploy a number of their own armies to the battle, filling a cup with cubes for all units present on both sides. Players then blinding take cubes from the cup, such cubes and their allegiances determining units lost in the battle. Winning provides favour, victory points, and removes Heroes defeated from the game. As the game progresses, the Nazgul may gain and lose power (personally, by advancing or reversing their Clix dial, and by the armies under their control).

There's plenty more to the rules, including an advancing One Ring track which will cause the players to effectively "run out of time" (due to certain hobbits depositing a certain item of jewellery in a certain volcanic mountain) and thus all lose the game. If all stages are completed before this occurs, the winner is whomever has acquired the most victory points by winning battles, defeating Heroes, and completing quests.

The problems

Now that you have some idea of the game, let's address some of the most-raised complaints.

The semi-cooperative aspect doesn't work

One complaint raised is that the semi-coop aspect (working together to beat the game, while trying to undercut each other for favour and victory points) doesn't make thematic sense; i.e. that the Ringwraiths of the stories don't have sufficient individuality, or otherwise would not compete on a personal level. I'm not sure I accept that argument myself; the Nazgul have personal histories, and there are plenty of examples of Sauron's forces working for personal gain. Sauron himself started out as the conniving servant of a greater power, as I vaguely recall. Ultimately, this comes down to a subjective take on the underlying material; you may disagree, but I see no reason why Nazgul wouldn't compete to become first among the Dark Lord's servants.

Our plucky Ringwraiths. Picture by the author.

The other argument under this heading is that the semi-cooperative aspect doesn't work mechanically. While there are competitive games which include an "everybody loses" clause which may kick in if players slow one another down too much (Chaos in the Old World springs to mind), such games generally make such an outcome a fairly remote possibility. LotR:N has a higher requirement for cooperation; big battles will not be won without players working together. This problem comes down to a difference in gaming group; if your group is likely to "get" that this is a game of working together while conniving against each other, rather than a game of constant competition, you'll probably be fine.

If, on the other hand, your group is likely to be too aggressive, the game provides an alternative right there in the manual; the fully cooperative mode. As a pure cooperative mode, this thus allows solo play (with handling of multiple characters). I confess that this is my preferred way of playing. In any case, one cannot complain too much that the semi-coop mode is flawed since a fix is on the back of the manual.

The artwork is terrible

Well... yes. The board itself utilises a number of circles to keep track of the starting and current

Even less pretty than it appears in this photograph. Picture by the author.

disposition of the forces of "good", overlaid on a map. Quite frankly, to borrow the vernacular of our American cousins, this board looks like ass. A nicely detailed map, with simple indicators of starting forces and the direction of travel to each zone (and maybe colour-coding of each of the three overall regions of conflict) would almost certainly be preferential. The circles really add nothing of value, and just makes the whole thing look awful. It smacks of a nice idea which should have been discarded on testing.

Cards themselves are illustrated with screenshots from the films. If you really, really like looking at the films, that may be fine for you. I think most would agree that some proper artwork would have been preferable. The Clix figures don't help either; while I accept there's only so much you can do to produce five figures shrouded in black robes, they're still pretty disappointing.

So... no defence for this section. The artwork is terrible. I can only ask that you persevere.

The cube-pulling mechanism is weak

I'm not sure I understand this criticism. The game features a "push-your-luck" mechanism involving both how many armies you put in the cup, and how many you pull from it. Pulling blind from the cup has a reasonable amount of tension. Sure, perhaps replacing cubes with dice would provide more excitement (a la 1812: The Invasion of Canada and its cousins), but you'd need a hell of a lot of dice for big battles. That would be fun; but the cube-pulling mechanism is at least unusual. Honestly it's hard to feel strongly on this point. I call it a draw.

The game is just ludicrously overpriced

Yes. Yes it is. The RRP for this game is, I believe, £70 (or it was at time of release). Having five Clix figures is going to inflate prices, but by comparison, the mighty Mage Knight contains four Clix (albeit of the same sculpt), plus four excellent hand-painted figures, plus a range of components which are clearly superior to those of LotR:N, all for an RRP £20 less. There is no excuse for this price point, particularly considering the terrible artwork. So many games with broadly similar component requirements, yet superior actual components, exist with considerably lower price points (Cyclades, Wallenstein, etc.).

However, the market has realised how insane this RRP is. I myself bought my copy, new in shrink, for the princely sum of £17.50. That's less than some card games. And yes, it has certainly provided a decent return on investment at that price. Even given the defensive arguments in this article, a person would be crazy to purchase this at full price; but a bit of shopping around could make this a totally valid purchase.

So why should you play this game?

The above comments are intended to mitigate some of the criticisms of the game. In themselves, they do not provide compelling reasons to play this game (unless you are a Lord of the Rings completionist). But there is one very good reason to play this game:

This game is not a cube-pusher. It is a reverse-deckbuilder.

Those dreadful "heroes". Choose your battles wisely.
Picture by the author.

While this game includes a number of mechanisms (blind auction, push-your-luck on cube deployment, etc.), most of the real strategy revolves around the Hero deck. The heroes are the real threat in any battle, and before the battle, players must decide whether to place the Hero card(s) they have into the battle, or to draw from the deck. If the hero they hold is strong, they may wish to avoid it and chance the draw; on the other hand, if there isn't much to the rest of the hero army and the player is feeling strong, they may deliberately play the Hero in the hope of defeating them.

Why run the risk? Because any heroes that are not defeated are shuffled back into the deck, while those that are defeated leave the game. As time goes on, the Nazgul become stronger (on average), but so too do the armies of the enemy. If you do nothing but take easy options, you run a serious risk of thinning out the deck such that only strong heroes remain, producing an impassable blockade on your progress. Choosing when to fight the tough heroes, and thus thin the deck in favour of weaker enemies, is key. Ultimately, that Hero deck is the real enemy, and working out how to thin it is the real strategy of the game. This isn't the cube-based wargame-lite it seems to be; it's a reverse-deckbuilder.

There are other games that involve playing against enemy decks; for instance, the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game has decks for each location faced, but these are small and work in a rather different way. Thunderstone Advance uses an enemy deck, but enemies largely leave and are dealt with one-by-one in a unidirectional fashion. I cannot think of any other game which utilises a large, constantly-reshuffled deck, thinned over numerous rounds, as the AI enemy. LotR:N offers an unusual mechanism in a much-loved setting. I wouldn't describe it as an overlooked classic, but if you have any interest in deck-based games, want to play something a bit different, enjoy the theme, and can find it at a reasonable price point, you really should consider this game (though I recommend starting with the fully-coop variant, even if you are planning on using the semi-coop variant in the long run).

And finally...

This is the first of a two-part article set. In the second, I will outline a variant I have been using which adds both excitement and strategic variation to the cube-oriented mechanisms. Watch this space...

Board Games For... Travellers

The first shoots of spring are threatening to burst through, and with them, the first embers of the wandering spirit are kindled for the ardent traveller. The highest slopes still hold the potential for skiing, while Paris approaches its springtime. Long journeys, however, demand distractions that are both portable and sustainable. Presented here are those that return the greatest diversion in the smallest package; since they're so small, I can justify discussing five alternatives rather than my standard three.

Since these must provide the most play in the least volume, I have applied the following exclusion criteria to the list:

• They must be small - not much bigger than a couple of decks of cards, so they can fit in and be accessible from a rucksack pocket. Regrettably, this excludes some of my favourite portables; Jaipur, Citadels, Skull & Roses, I must bid you all adieu.
• They must be of a type which sustains repeated play. That doesn't mean that they must necessarily have great depth, merely that players can get several matches on a long journey without boredom. It is at this point that games such as Zombie Dice leave our selection.
• Finally, they must be playable on public transport, ideally on no more than the tray of a train or aeroplane, without any pieces that would be easily dislodged by movement. This excludes anything with standing pieces, as well as games which cover fair bit of space despite coming in a small package (e.g. the excellent Hanabi).

With these restrictions in mind, my suggestions are as follows:

1. Coloretto 

 

One of the simplest card games in modern gaming is also one of the best. Less that two packs of

Picture by the author

cards produce a suprising amount of gameplay. On your turn, either draw and place a card from the deck, or pick up cards into your score piles; once you've picked up, you can't get any more until everyone has picked up. Try to collect three colours; if you collect too many different types, they score against you. The rules can be grasped in moments, and a game rarely takes more than 20 minutes. Nonetheless, for a simple game, it frequently throws tough choices; do you place cards that you want together, and risk an opponent taking them? Do you poison an opponent's well with a card they don't want, at the cost of losing it yourself? Do you cut your losses and take a part-filled row, or gamble on the turn of the next card? Simple rules, nothing but cards, but plenty of lighter gaming fun to be had.

Players: 2-5
Game duration: around 5-10 minutes per player
Best for: non-gamers, groups including children, those too tired for more demanding games.
Not so good for: serious gamers seeking tough intellectual challenges.
Recommended source for UK buyers at time of writing: I would recommending getting the anniversary edition from Amazon; the superior art of the anniversary edition is definitely worth it, and even though this version has German instructions, you can just find and print the English version.

2. Mr Jack Pocket

Picture by kdsz

The closest thing on this list to an actual board game, Mr Jack Pocket could best be described as Hide-And-Seek: The Game. Tracing its lineage back to such classics as Scotland Yard, this is an asymmetric game where one player acts as the eponymous Mr Jack, who is trying to keep his identity hidden until time runs out. The other player controls Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson, and the ever-adorable sleuthing hound Toby, as they try to identify which suspect is really Mr Jack. Both players manipulate the nine tiles which make up the game board, as well as the positions of the detectives, trying to either see or conceal the suspects on each tile. The random factor on this game is fairly low; it is very much a game of anticipating and neutralising your opponent's move. Attractive pieces and tight battles of wits makes this a wonderful game for those who find the combination of spatial manipulation and psychological duelling compelling.


Players: 2
Game duration: 15-20 minutes
Best for: strategists needing a quick fix, fans of Victoriana, hiders, seekers
Not so good for: any more than two players, casual gamers
Recommended source for UK buyers at time of writing: Gameslore

3. Love Letter

 

One of the most successful of the new breed of so-called "microgames", Love Letter consists of

Picture by Casey Lynn

merely 16 cards, a few cubes to keep score, and a delightful velvet pouch to transport it all in. Like Coloretto, this is another easily-grasped card game; unlike Coloretto, where all information is open, Love Letter is all about concealment and bluffing. The game plays quickly and simply; you have a hand consisting of a single card, and on your turn you draw from the pile.You must then discard one of your cards to return to a single-card hand; its special power will activate when discarded. Some cards allow you to eliminate an opponent by correctly deducing the contents of their hand; others allow you to eliminate them in other ways, gain information, or protect oneself. Players are attempting to woo the Princess by getting a letter to her through the persons represented by the cards; the winner is whoever ends the round with the highest-rated card, or whoever is the last person not exposed. Each round is short, and luck of the draw is definitely a factor, but the game still delivers lots of bluffing and deduction in a small, accessible package.

Players: 2-4
Game duration: around 20 minutes
Best for: honestly, pretty much anyone you would want to play a game with. I've yet to find someone who didn't find it accessible and fun, with its easily-grasped but compelling psychological gameplay.
Not so good for: Killjoys who find the theme off-putting or the game "too dependent on luck". These people just don't know how to have a good time.
Recommended source for UK buyers at time of writing: boardgameguru

4. Hive Pocket

Picture by Markus A

Back to more serious strategy games now. Hive, and it's travel-friendly Hive Pocket version (which is the same game with smaller pieces and convenient travel pouch), is a serious game which clearly shows chess in its DNA. Unusually for an abstract game based on pieces, rather than cards, there is no board; instead, the lovely ceramic tiles are both pieces and board. On each turn, a player either places or moves one of his/her pieces. The aim of the game is to surround the opponent's queen bee, while protecting one's own. The game is smaller and quicker than chess (due partly to the much more fluid piece movement), but many of the same tactics are present; play is heavily reliant on trapping the opponent's pieces to prevent their movement, while keeping one's own pieces in play and jockeying for openings to move them into aggressive positions. Personally, I'm not a fan of chess, but I find Hive's more rapid pace and tighter spatial elements much more enjoyable.
Players: 2
Game duration: 20-30 minutes
Best for: Strategists; reformed chess-players; entomologists; anyone who would enjoy beautiful, ceramic tiles.
Not so good for: Casual gamers, arachnophobics.
Recommended source for UK buyers at time of writing: Amazon; German version again, so you will need English rules again if you get that version.

5. The Resistance/The Resistance Avalon

 

And finally, we head into social gaming for our last pick. Derived from the classic "Werewolf" (and

Picture by Nuno Sentieiro

designed to evade that game's player elimination and narrator requirements), The Resistance is a game of bluff and misdirection for entire groups of people, with gameplay focused on social interaction rather than cards or pieces. Players represent a resistance cell fighting valiantly against an oppressive regime in a totalitarian future; however, some of the players are secretly spies, doing their best to serve the government and maintain order in the face of anarchist extremists. Spies know who other are, but genuine members of the cell have no idea who anyone is. Players take turns to try to form mission teams; if their team is voted acceptable by the group, those on the mission then perform a secret ballot regarding the mission's success. If the team pulls together and all vote for success, then the mission will indeed succeed; however, if a viper in the nest votes for failure, the mission is a loss. The teams race to win best three of five, with player's roles only definitively revealed at the end.
The result is a game of bluff, deduction, and above all, wild accusation. If a mission fails, the saboteur could be anyone. Do you the trust the team leader? Or do you think they are genuine, but you don't trust their proposed team. Is the team leader choosing his companions so as to frame them in the case of a failure? Why is that person so determined to accuse you of being a spy? Is it because they're the real spy? Or are they a fellow spy, trying accuse you to either gain the trust of the group, or make the group trust you instead? Half an hour of debate, accusations and lies ensue. Well, no lies from me. I'm telling the truth. You're the one who's lying because YOU'RE A FILTHY SPY GET HIM EVERYBODY

(There is also The Resistance: Avalon, which is the same underlying game with the addition that players receive Arthurian roles with special powers, as in most versions of Werewolf. I haven't played it, so can't comment directly, but if I had a choice, I would by the Avalon version.)
Players: 5-10
Game duration: around 30 minutes (relatively unaffected by player number, as the game has a 5-turn limit irrespective of player number)
Best for: Friends travelling together, social gamers, dirty-dealers
Not so good for: The compulsively honest, the quiet carriage of the train
Recommended source for UK buyers at time of writing: The Resistance at boardgameguru, and the Avalon version at iguk.

New Games For Old: Modern Alternatives To... Pictionary

Last week, we considered a number of board games which I would recommend for the enjoyment of art lovers. As a sister post, this week we shall turn our attention to the other side of that coin - games for art producers. This particular market has long been dominated by one ubiquitous family game- Pictionary. Consequently I shall be proposing three games which supersede that hoary chestnut, improving on its (fairly evident) shortcomings.

1. Pictomania

Easily the most obvious problem with Pictionary is that, at any given time, only a very small number of people are having fun. Unless an "All Play" is in effect, everyone else sits around getting bored - and getting more bored the longer the playing team continues to win. Pictomania solves this problem with a simple twist - everyone is drawing and guessing, all the time.
Cards are drawn each round with related words on them; players then receive a symbol and a number,

telling them what they must draw. When play begins, everyone starts drawing their target word; but they are also keeping an eye out for what the other players are drawing, guessing the meaning of their drawings at the same time. This allows players to play to their strengths - if, like me, you excel at guessing but can't draw a straight line, you can adjust your priorities appropriately. Pressure is on to do both, as fast as possible; you get more points for finishing earlier, and also more points for guessing earlier. Lose points for bad guessing, and also for those failing to guess your own drawing. Put it all together, and you have a frantic family game, which elegantly solves Pictionary's biggest flaw in a single stroke.

2. Telestrations/Cranium Scribblish/Eat Poop You Cat

cc: daveoratox

While Pictomania unquestionably improves on the basic mechanism of Pictionary, it doesn't really venture outside the basic concept. The public domain game generally known as Eat Poop You Cat (commercialised in such games as Telestrations and Cranium Scribblish) steps outside that framework to provide a different experience.
I'm sure most people are familiar with the basics - each player writes a sentence at the top of the page. These are then passed, and players must try to draw the sentence they have received. They fold the page to conceal the original sentence, and pass again - now players must try to guess what the original sentence was from the drawing. This sentence is then represented artistically by the next player, and so on.
The concept is simple to grasp, and almost guarantees a good time - being worse at drawing can actually work in a player's favour, as hilarity ensues as guesses become increasingly bizzare and inappropriate. For a straightforward fun time, more likely to produce laughs and anecdotes than either Pictionary or Pictomania, EPYC and its commercial derivations are fine choices.

3. Identik

Then again, maybe you would prefer something that adds at least a little bit of intellectual challenge

to your artistic escapades. Identik's clever twist on the formula is to reverse the role of the guesser. In Identik, aach round's Art Director is given a picture which only they are allowed to see. They must describe it in as much detail as they can, while the other players attempt to draw it. The onus is on the director to be specific, and explain things in a way the players can understand. After the drawing phase, ten hidden criteria are revealed, and drawings scored on whether they fulfill these criteria.
Identik doesn't have the frantic, all-drawing-all-guessing fun of Pictomania, but it does capture the essence of having everyone focused on the same activity at once. EPYC is probably going to produce more laughs, but Identik has an even stronger pressure to get into players' heads and explain things such that they will understand. Identik is definitely a strong all-rounder in the Pictionary-beater competition.

Board Games For... Art Lovers

With the festive season upon us, the stores are filled with hosts of well-meaning friends and parents, completing the annual ritual of purchasing gifts which are intended to be, in some way, personal to the recipient.
When selecting a board game as a gift, I humbly suggest you follow the same principle. Rather than pulling yet another painfully predictable copy of Monopoly or Scene It from the shelves, consider the individual's tastes and interests - I promise you, there are excellent games out there to suit every psyche. For this article, we shall consider games likely to be enjoyed by art lovers.

Dixit

Dixit is often proposed as a "gateway" game; that is, one which is well-suited to convincing

Picture by Olka Kobylecka

newcomers of the value of modern board games. The rules are simple, and the mechanism is immediately understandable. It is a game about the meaning and effect of art.
The game itself consists of little more than a means of keeping score, tokens representing votes (more on this in a moment), and a number of cards. These card are, in reality, the whole of the game.
Each is lavishly illustrated with some surreal, dreamlike-scene. The artworks are evocative and ambiguous - the latter being a key quality. Each round, one person chooses one of their cards, and then gives some sort of general clue to a meaning they find in it - it could be a short phrase, a single word, an interpretive dance, a noise, a meandering anecdote, whatever. Everyone else chooses a card from their own hand which they believe reflects that clue, and all are shuffled together. Then all players (except the one giving the clue) vote on which is the true artwork. The clue-giver only wins points if some, but not all, players choose their card - they must try to walk a line between precision and enigma.
Thus the game is all about interpreting art, while trying to get inside the heads of other players and guess the interpretations they would make. It's a wonderful ice-breaker for new acquaintances, as well as a game of deep psychology for those who know each other well. Simple, beautiful, and highly recommended for every audience.

Pastiche

From the interpretation of art to its creation, at a level of fine detail. Pastiche is a game of mixing the paints necessary to produce history's greatest art works. The game is played on three levels. The

Picture by Chris Miller

first act of each player's turn is to add a tile to a shared mixing board - the primary colours so combined where the new tile meets its fellows mix, providing the player with cards representing the secondary colours produced (or, sub-optimally, a single primary colour is obtained from the tile). Secondary colour cards can then be mixed to produce other colours. Beyond this, the players are also jockeying for control of masterpieces - when they have acquired the necessary colours to produce them, they can then turn in these masterpieces for points.
This game is great for those who love the technical side of art, and comes with lovely, giant tiles representing the artworks. Definitely a fun choice for practical artists. Nonetheless, when it comes to a games about art production, my favourite is still...

Fresco

This game considers the process of art creation from a step back. Players act as the master painter of a studio, delegating the actual work to their assistants. "Fresco" falls broadly within the "worker placement" genre; players have a number of workers, and must decide where to send them all before anyone's actions are processed. Sending assistants to the market allows you to buy the paints on sale there - and, crucially, prevent others buying them. Workers can also be sent to the cathedral to use those same paints in the painting of the eponymous fresco, converting paints to points. Other tasks include painting portraits (for money to buy more paints), mixing colours to get the ones you need, and finally, just sending assistants to the theatre for the night, cheering them up.
Morale is crucial - high morale provides you with an extra assistant, while low happiness causes one

Picture by Raiko Puust

of your assistants to go AWOL for a while.
However, the most important decision a player makes every turn is what time to get up in the morning. Get up early and you suffer morale loss, while having to pay premium prices at the market - but you get first pick. Get up late and everyone is happier, plus you can buy paints cheap - if there's anything worthwhile left, of course. In no time flat, players will be stabbing themselves in the foot by getting up early just to stop their opponents grabbing the good stuff.
Ultimately, Fresco is a satisfying and surprisingly accessible game - but more than that, the fact that it revolves around getting up in the morning makes it my personal choice for most appropriate game for art lovers.

Arkham Horror: Allow Me To Introduce The Neighbours

Picture by Stuart Dawson

If there is one word to describe the game Arkham Horror, it would be "overhelming". The base game comes with a positive avalanche of cards, tokens, chits, and rules. Game expansions are numerous and, in some cases, large. The game is so overwhelming, it has an expansion just to expand the other expansions. It even has a monster power called "overwhelming".
There is far too much to the game to squeeze into one article. For today, we shall consider a single domain - the Investigators which act as the players' avatars. We shall split them into four broad types: monster sweepers, explorers, spellcasters, and all-rounders. (We will restrict ourselves to the investigators in the base game for the moment, or this already-long article would be impossibly drawn-out.)

Monster sweepers

Monsters sweepers spend most of their time on the streets of Arkham, slaying monsters to keep the town navigable and hold down the terror track. High Will and Fight are crucial, being the basis for the Horror and Combat checks these characters will be making frequently. Speed is generally less important (as monster sweepers will mostly be moving between street areas), and luck/lore do not much come into play (Luck is most useful during card encounters, while Lore is primarily used by spellcasters). Let's look at each of the monster sweepers in turn:

The Bad: Michael McGlen

On the face of things, Michael seems like an excellent slayer - he starts with one of the best weapons in the game by default, his special power soaks up combat damage, and his Stamina is a massive 7. However, this last point is part of his downfall - with a Sanity of 3, he will go immediately insane on failing a Horror check against the game's tougher monsters, fleeing to the Asylum before even opening fire, thus undermining the entire point to his existence. This problem isn't helped by the fact that Michael has only an average Will. This weakness to Horror makes Michael my least-favoured monster sweeper.

The Fair:

Bob Jenkins

Bob's low Stealth, but high Fight/Will, make him well-suited to street fighting rather than movement and exploration. On the other hand, Bob's power to draw additional Common items is mostly activated by encounters, the usual department of explorer-types. On top of this, Common items are generally less powerful than Unique items, ranking his power below that of Monterey Jack. Ultimately, Bob's drawback is that his skills favour a monster sweeper role, while his special ability favours exploration - a split purpose which makes him sub-optimal in either role, but does give him some flexibility.

Ashcan Pete

Pete is a slightly better choice. His Fight and Will are both strong, and supported by a very high Sneak in a pinch. With Sanity/Stamina of 4/6, he can take big hits and stay in the fight. On top of this, his Scrounge ability (despite, as with Bob, being more suited to an explorer) maximises his odds of obtaining useful items, and Duke acts as a powerful bulwark in support of Horror rolls. Pete is just an all-round solid choice, and recommended as a strong arm in any investigator group.

The Good: Joe Diamond

Joe Diamond has probably the best special ability for combat of all investigators. Rolling two dice for each Clue token expended greatly increases his odds of passing any given check, including Horror and Combat. Since Clues can be expended after the initial roll, Joe can manage risk far more effectively than other characters. Normally, spending Clues for rerolls is a sub-optimal strategy, as they should be used for sealing gates - if you're on monster duty, however, this consideration does not apply.
Joe's flaw is that, like Michael, Joe suffers from poor Will. On the other hand, at least he has 4 Sanity so can afford to lose a Horror check, even against a tough monsters. In short, Joe is a decent fighter, with the best special ability for combat, and also has the flexibility to be a fair explorer.

Explorers

Picture by Frank Strauss

The next type of investigator are those I will call "explorers". These are the characters best suited to exploring otherworld areas and closing gates. To facilitate these tasks, they benefit from high Speed to help them acquire vital Clues for sealing, and good Stealth to move past monsters to reach Clue-bearing areas rather than having to stop and fight. High Luck is handy, as it is commonly used in otherworld encounters, and special abilities which complement Arkham and otherworld encounters are a must.

The Poor: Sister Mary

The good Sister is widely regarded as the weakest investigator in the base game, and with good reason. Other than Luck, her skills are all average-to-weak. Her starting items are nothing to write home about, and she has no cash to improve that situation. Starting with a Blessing isn't too great either - in the first few rounds, Blessings are generally less important, so by the time the Blessing would become seriously useful it may well have already expired.
But most of all, her special power is next to useless. If we value special abilities by frequency of use times impact when used, it's just terrible. Investigators frequently navigate the entire game without once becoming LITAS. Even if she were to be otherwise LITAS, saving a single round of play is of minimal impact. Multiply those two factors together and this power is comically pointless, making Sister Mary significantly weaker than any other character in the game.
That being said, there is one circumstance where Sister Mary can pay off; that is, when Yog-Sothoth is the Ancient One. Probably the most frequent circumstance leading to becoming LITAS is become incapacitated while in an other world; with Yog-Sothoth devouring those who do so, otherworld exploration becomes extremely fraught. Sister Mary can avoid this risk entirely, suddenly making her a very attractive option as an explorer. That said, Kate Winthrop's power is a good alternative anyway, as unexpected incapacitation is most frequently a consequence of monsters appearing.
In all other circumstances, avoid.

The Fair:

Monterey Jack

High Luck, useful starting items, and a handy special ability which improves Jack's ability to acquire Unique items - the most useful type of item, and one which often arises in encounters. Jack's main drawbacks are his low Will and Sanity, flaws which would be fatal in a monster sweeper but is forgivable in an explorer.

Kate Winthrop

Kate's special power can be a bit of a head-scratcher for new players. Given the number of potential locations for gates, the ability to stop gate opening at just one seems marginal at best. However, by the mid-game, the board will look very different - once a couple of seals are down, and a few gates are open, the number of potential gate sites is much more constrained. Placing Kate on a high-frequency location that doesn't have a seal or portal makes a big difference to the probabilities of gate opening. There is another side to her power as well - preventing monster appearances is very useful during encounters (particularly otherworld encounters, where a surprise Dhole can be catastrophic). Thus Kate's usefulness in managing risk is actually quite powerful.
Her Lore and Sneak are pretty strong too. Poor combat abilities aren't much of an issue when monsters can't spawn on her, and she should be avoiding rather than fighting monsters in the streets. Her only drawbacks are her merely average Speed and Luck.

Darrell Simmons

And then we move onto the true exploration specialists. Darrell is one such, as a consequence of his special ability - the ability to draw two Arkham encounter cards and choose one is very powerful, given that, as explorers rush around picking up clues, they tend to spend about half the game taking Arkham encounters. His Speed isn't bad either. The things that hold him back are his poor Sneak (though his combat abilities are good, explorers shouldn't waste their time having fights) and merely average Luck. Thus he is pipped to the post of "best explorer" by the estimable...

The Good: Gloria Goldberg

Gloria takes the tiara for finest explorer due to one factor: her phenomenal ability. Though otherworld encounters are probably drawn slightly less often that Arkham encounters, they have much more risk/reward attached to them. Being able to draw two and pick is a colossal advantage. On top of that, you can add Glora's good Luck and Will. Her biggest weakness is when facing monsters - not only are her combat abilities weak, she doesn't have the Sneak to get past either. She works best as a member of a team, with others clearing the streets while she uses her power to avoid monsters in other worlds by not picking that card.

Spellcasters

Spellcasters are those whose initial setup doesn't particularly push them into either a combat or exploration role. Instead, their starting spells are likely to define the role they take. Spellcasters require high Lore for their spell checks, and preferably have spell-related special abilities as well.
Regrettably, the base game contains a mostly weak selection of spellcasters - with one shining exception.

The Poor: Dexter Drake

When discussions about the worst investigator in the game have exhausted the shortcomings of Sister Mary, they invariably move on to Dexter Drake. His ability to draw extra Spells isn't terrible, but given that Spells are generally drawn less often than Common or Unique items, it's pretty weak. His Lore, the key to spellcasting, is above average, but still not the best. He starts with a guaranteed combat spell - but his weak Will makes him a liability in combat. Above all, his Sanity is only 5 - he's going to run out of the ability to power those spells far too soon.
You may get some great spells on the draw, but otherwise, it's hard to find a use for Dexter.

The Fair:

Vincent Lee

Vincent is, on the face of it, nearly identical to Dexter. Same 5/5 Sanity/Stamina split, same lore, and

Picture by the author

so forth. He's a bit slower, and a bit luckier, and has a better Sneak to help avoid combat situations. While his special ability might, on the face of it, be less useful to a spellcaster than Dexter's, it will come into play more frequently and generally make itself more useful. Overall, Vincent isn't much better than Dexter, but comes in a nose ahead.
(As an aside, the most effective monster sweeper I ever had was a Vincent. He amassed over a dozen monster trophies before the game concluded. His secret? A "Feeding the Mind" spell, which he used to recuperate Sanity at the cost of Stamina, and then promptly healed back the lost Stamina. He became a constantly-regenerating juggernaut, able to take the punches and keep on coming back. On the other hand, in every other time I've played Vincent he's been a complete liability.)

Harvey Walters

Old Harv has got a lot of pluck for an older gentleman. With the highest Lore in the game, and a huge 7 Sanity, he is much better at actually casting Spells than Dexter or Vincent. His combat abilities are the weakest in the game, but he should be using spells to close the gap, and he has a strong Sneak if he can't. His special ability to reduce Sanity costs doesn't apply to Spells, but at least it reduces other costs, helping ringfence his Sanity for powering Spells. As a pure caster, Harvey is the best, and would be the best spellcasting character if it weren't for:

The Good: Carolyn Fern

Oh Carolyn, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Your Lore is strong, and your Luck its equal. Should it come to a fight, your combat abilities are superior to any other spellcaster. True, as a lady, you do not sneak, neither do you hurry; however, you should be able to acquire the Spells to overcome at least one of those shortcomings. Above all, you have by far the finest special ability for a spellcaster - you may heal the very Sanity you use to cast Spells. You may just cast, and cast again, a never-ending font of thaumaturgic splendour.
Carolyn is not merely a strong character, but, being a spellcaster, one of the most interesting to play. If only she were not a fictional personage, I would be contacting her father with regards to potential matrimonial union.

All-rounders

Finally, we have the elusive class of all-rounders, whose skills and special abilities do not strongly favour any of the roles above. All have 5/5 Sanity/Stamina, and average skills. They generally have flexibility, but by that token lack strength in any particular job.

The Bad: Amanda Sharpe

I'm sorry, Amanda, but you're just terrible. Your skills are all exactly average. Your high Focus should give you flexibility, but big skill shifts rarely arise in practice, and since you lack any extremes in your skills in the first place this Focus largely goes to waste. Furthermore, you have probably the weakest special ability of any investigator bar Sister Mary - Skill cards are rarely drawn, and in any case, your flat skill distribution means you don't really care that much which Skill card you get anyway.
Amanda isn't just weak; she's also boring. Avoid.

The Fair: Jenny Barnes

Picture by Tomas Naslund

From one of my least-favourite investigators to one of my most cherished. Already, compared to Amanda, she's better in a fight and luckier - thus she can take a few more chances in locations than Amanda can. Sure, she's a bit sluggish, but her starting cash and constant income means that faster movement is only a few visits to a shop away - visits that Jenny can keep on making. Her access to items can often overcome her lack of other special ability, and her acquisitions can make her a strong player in either slayer or explorer roles. Plus, she's a great team player, as she can pass off excess items to other players. Jenny's both strong and fun to play - easily my preferred all-rounder.

The Good/Worst: Mandy Thompson

Mandy is an absolute beast. Good Sneak and Will make her resilient, and she doesn't have any glaring weaknesses. She starts with 4 Clues, putting her into a great position for an early gate seal. But the thing putting her over the top is her incredible special ability. Arkham Horror is a game about risk management; being able to reroll any skill check is massive, and made positively overwhelming as only failures are rerolled. It's hard to fail anything with Mandy.
And that's a large part of my problem. Mandy just makes it too easy to win. She adds far too much power to the strategic side of the game. At the same time, she isn't a particularly interesting character in herself; in a game which is about theme and story rather than hard strategy, lack of character is unforgivable. Unless you're playing a single-investigator game (and hence need the power boost), I beg you, don't pick Mandy Thompson. She undermines the game itself. Just say no.

New Games For Old: Modern Alternatives to... Monopoly

As the holiday season approaches, an insidious specter haunts the land, striking fear into the minds and hearts of all men and women of good cheer. I refer, of course, to the annual tradition of inflicting the game of Monopoly upon the family unit. I despair that a technology nearly a century old should be forced upon the young, thus turning another generation off the hobby of boardgaming. I fully understand why this happens - each generation of parents had Monopoly inflicted on them, and so do the same to their children, who then punish their children in the same way and so on, the curse carried unto the hundredth generation.

There are those who claim that Monopoly is a "good" game, and demand to play it at family gatherings. These people are wrong. Let's briefly look at the structure of a Monopoly session to understand why. Any game of Monopoly plays out in three overlapping phases:

1. The phase where properties are acquired. This involves a dreadfully tedious process of rolling the dice, and then perhaps landing on a space you can buy. Precisely zero strategy is to be found in this phase, and player interaction is slim to none. Theoretically, this phase could cause interesting moments if the rule is activated whereby a person who lands on a property they don't want has to auction it off. In practice, this rarely occurs, since players should always buy properties (even if they have to mortgage owned properties to do so), even if they don't want them, for the leverage they bring in the trading phase. While I'm here, I might as well provide a variant to greatly improve on this phase:

Picture by Detlef Dolling

• Remove one of each colour group from the properties cards.
• Shuffle and deal out all remaining properties evenly among the players (adding any remainder to the "removed" group).
• Players pay for these properties, exactly as if they had landed on them and bought them. Give each player 500 pounds/dollars to represent the money they would have gained/lost while circumnavigating the board. Optionally allow players to refuse properties, adding them to the "removed" pile.
• Auction off properties from the "removed" pile. Properties attracting no bids are unsold, and may be bought later during the normal course of the game.
• Start rolling dice and progressing the game as normal.

Voila, a variant which achieves exactly the same thing in a fraction of the time (and, due to auctioning off one of each colour group, is considerably more strategic and interesting).

2. The trading phase. This is the part where players make deals among one another, attempting to complete a colour group and thus commence building. This phase isn't actually that bad, as it tends to go reasonably fast, and involves strategy and player interaction. Nonetheless, there are plenty of other games which do a better job of delivering the same thing.

3. The end phase, where players circle the board endlessly, their cash slowly bleeding away, until one winner is left. This interminable horror is the main reason why Monopoly is a bad game. Of course, most people just get bored and call the game in favour of the obvious future winner - though there are some sadistic individuals (usually young, with more years of precious life to spare) who demand the game be played to its tedious conclusion. These individuals should be sent to the workhouse at the earliest possible opportunity.

Picture by Gerald McDaniel

Ultimately, then, Monopoly is a game with far too few strategic decisions, far too much aimless
roll-and-move, and just far too much time required. Happily, a great many games have since become available which achieve similar aims to this game (bar, arguably, its moral purpose in teaching the evils of rent-based economies) in much less time. Let's take a look at three of the most family-friendly and widely available.

1. Acquire

Sid Sackson's Acquire is one of the small group of games published before the 1990s which are still considered acceptable among modern boardgame connoisseurs. Acquire contains precisely none of the mechanics of the game Monopoly. What it does offer is a game which is actually about forming monopolies.

Picture by the author

Rather than aimlessly rolling dice, players place tiles from their rack, thus expanding corporations in which the players can invest. When they come into contact, a merger takes place, the larger company swallowing the smaller - thus producing something that feels a little like "a monopoly". These corporate mergers invite key decisions - whether to convert stock from the merged company into shares in the parent (which will probably then be frozen until the end of the game), liquidate stock for immediate cash, or keep the share certificates for when (and if) the company is reformed. This last move is risky, but key to winning - majority shareholders of merged companies enjoy big bonuses, so getting the most shares in startups is what separates winners from losers.
Overall, Acquire is a much more strategic game than Monopoly, with more of a feeling of corporate intrigue, while keeping a simple and easily learned ruleset. The only downsides are a somewhat dry theme which may be a hard sell to younger players.

2. For Sale

It may not be corporate espionage that attracts you to the theme of Monopoly - perhaps it's real estate
speculation that you find more compelling. In this case, For Sale is the game for you.

Picture by Gary James

It's split into two parts: in the first, a number of properties are auctioned off. Technically, only the most valuable is up for auction - the rest are taken, in order of value, as players drop out of the auction, in which case they pay only half of their bid. This creates a quandary for the player - not only do they have to judge how much they want the big-number property, but if they instead choose to bid up the other players, they will have to pay the piper eventually. Already players are trying to read each others' minds, switching instantly between bluffing and honest bidding.
The second phase is even nastier - this plays as a series of blind auctions. A number of cash amounts are laid out, and players secretly choose which property they will bid against these amounts. Then everyone reveals simultaneously. The property with the highest number takes the biggest cash prize, the next-best property takes the second-largest, and so forth. You may wish to deliberately lowball, taking a prize that's nearly as good and save your big cards for later - but your opponent may be thinking exactly the same thing...
For Sale combines the fun of quickfire speculation with a poker-like game of bluff and blind bidding, within the same real estate theme as Monopoly. Plus, it plays in under twenty minutes. Beats Monopoly in pretty much every way.

3. Bohnanza

Then again, maybe you don't care about property speculation either. Perhaps its the wheeling and dealing of the trading phase that appeals. In which case, there are so many better trading games in the world than Monopoly. The one I would recommend would be Bohnanza.

Picture by spearjr

Bohnanza has perhaps the least appealing theme in the canon of modern gaming - players are bean farmers, attempting to grow the largest possible crops of a given bean variety for harvesting. It would be hard to come up with a less attractive theme. But don't be put off - the game itself is pure gold.
The core of the game is the middle phase of each player's turn, where they turn over three new beans and then have to somehow dispose of them. Perhaps they already have those beans in their two fields, and just add them to their existing harvest. More likely, they don't want them at all, and would much rather trade them to the other players - and the game strongly encourages trading away unwanted cards, as if you don't trade them away, you must plant them, even if it ruins their current plan. You only have two fields, so if you have to plant, one of your existing crops will have to go - probably for much less value than you would like.
On top of this, players are constantly forced to plant cards from their own hands - if those cards don't fit with their plans, then they have some powerful motivation to trade out these cards too. All this positive motivation leads to a frenzy of trades; some players will enter bidding wars when they compete for the same card. Others play it cool, trying to act like they don't even want that bean, to try to make a favourable trade. "I'll take that green bean off your hands", you say, hoping to get something for nothing - "Two blue for a soy!" cries your sister, forcing you to either bid up and reveal your plans, or let her have it when you'd much rather be making money off it. Most players' turns will involve multiple trades - and a minute later, they whirlwind will start again with the next player.
Of all the games here, Bohnanza offers the most player interaction, and is one of the most active trading-based games available on the market. Absolutely, 100% recommended for families and pubs alike.