Archive through May 15, 2021
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Games and Science Fiction: Other Games (for SFUers who like to play them):
Archive through May 15, 2021
Reading back a bit see I see we recommended Ticket to Ride before. Catan, Carcassonne also.
Small World is very good as well.
Nuclear War can be played two player and is easy to learn.
Thanks everyone!
Anyone else have Star Trek: Bridge Crew? Just downloaded it for my Oculus Quest.. so far, very immersive.
Counterfeit games? http://www.sjgames.com/ill/archive/April_27_2021/Counterfeit_Games
I have heard about this, especially with respect to some products from GMT Games. It seems that if you subcontract the manufacturing of your games to a factory in China, you run the risk of counterfeit copies coming on to the market. This is a concern if you buy from third party sellers on eBay or Amazon.
Makes me glad we quit selling to distributors.
Distributors aren't the problem Steve. Manufacturers in China will counterfeit anything they see on the sales charts on Amazon and eBay.
FFG did a review a few years ago and found that close to 75% of their games that they bought on Amazon were counterfeit.
I didn't say distributors were the problem, but without them, the only way to buy ADB products is from ADB (or our Noble Knight outlet on Amazon). Any ADB product from any other source is suspect since the seller has no legal source (i.e., we don't sell to distributors). [Some stores are disposing of old stock, but anything we released in the last two years was never available anywhere but ADB/NK.)
Zac, with all due respect, I know a lot more about this business than you do. My apologies if your limited knowledge led you to confuse what I said.
Zac, you were out of line. You need to start by respecting my 50 years in this business and assume that you don't understand me not that I don't understand the business I have made a living in for half a century. Correcting someone in public when he was not wrong is not acceptable anywhere.
Zac, it would be a big mistake for you to continue this conversation. I have had all of your disrespect I am obliged to put up with, and then some. Your deleted messages violated board rules (i.e., no complaining about or questioning deletions), which is why they were deleted, and why they will be deleted if you do it again. Only the next time will come with a seven-day suspension.
I wonder who is more dangerous. Someone who understands the environment, or someone who understands "conflict." When I was in college I happened to play a few games against an opponent who was well versed in the sciences of space flight. He understood how long it would take to get from A to B, how hard it was to divert and other details. I understood balance of forces, concentration of effort, and Logistics. We were playing a game that was supposed to keep us "entertained" for several days trying to achieve victory. I no longer remember what it was called. The thing is that neither side was supposed to be capable of a quick victory. Yet, if I was in charge of either side, that side won a quick victory.
Perhaps because I was being stupid, i.e., taking a very risky route that a saner person would not take gaining the advantage as a result of surprise. But my opponent never seemed to see these maneuvers coming and, consequently, was taken off guard and unable strike back, at least unable to mass force to strike back before his "government" surrendered (the game could have the government of a side surrender even if forces were "in the field" if certain conditions were met).
in the six times (minimum) that we played, the game always ended in less than two hours, and each time my side (irrespective of which side it was) achieved victory with almost no fighting. I simply found a path to control something vital that his side could not fight without and he had (or his government had) to surrender before he was able to react to the maneuver. For example, in one game a surprise maneuver robbed his side of all access to fuel supplies. In another a major portion of my fleet arrived over his capital while his fleet was still maneuvering for control of resources.
Hows it go....
"Fortune Favors The Bold"
Playing AD&D, jumped right into some fights that the characters shouldn't have, instead of taking time to set up a tactic, just went at it...
Put the DM on his heels and keep them there, you can accomplish the seemingly impossible (especially if the dice fall in your favor a bit)....
I will have to admit that playing "Empire of the Petal Throne" I found it frequently to the advantage of the players to confront the Game Master with the unexpected causing him to become confused.
Such as attacking a Swamp God with only a sword and dagger.
Of course, I have to admit that if the Game Master had announced that the only thing of the Swamp God we could see was a tentacle that was as big around as two or three of my torsos rather than simply saying it had grabbed our guide . . .
Sometimes you can become (in a game) a legend (at least amongst your own playing group).
I reached a level of competence in combat in Empire of the Petal Thrown known as "broadsword and dagger," that is to say I could fight with a broadsword in one hand and a dagger in the other giving two "attacks" per round. This resulted in a couple of humorous situations (the Swamp God being an example, e.g., my "broadsword" bounced off despite my rolling a "double damage" attack with it, resulting in the Swamp God basically laughing, but rather than giving up I swung my next blow with my dagger, and scored "Instant Death."
This happened at least twice that I can remember, but I think it happened more than just those two times.
The other time I can recall we came across a bridge and tied a rope around one of NPCs and sent her across. A giant/monster rose out of the water and grabbed her leg. The three "Good Warriors" promptly dropped the rope. The one evil warrior promptly dug in his heels. The Dungeon Master was confused and allowed the Puny Warrior to vie with the monster on a die roll, and the Girl was pulled to safety. The Evil Warrior then deployed his Bow and sent arrows into the confused monster, who could not leave the water but was not ready to retreat, but had no way of fighting the arrows as the Good Warriors also opened up. After this went on for a while, one of the Good Warriors suddenly dropped his bow, drew his sword and charged the monster. As he had not coordinated this activity, the dungeon master directed all of the players to roll for a possible accidental hit. It turned out the Evil Warrior accidentally hit the Good warrior in the back, which propelled him into the monster's clutches. At this point, the Evil Warrior tossed aside his bow and announced that he was going to attack the monster. The remaining good warriors stopped firing, but opted not to also charge. At that point, the Evil Warrior swung his sword, doing a minor bit of damage, then the dagger, scoring "Instant Death."
AD&D:
Party of lower level characters...
Camped for the night, late encounter turned
out to be a troll...
Party scattered, my warrior sleeping in tree...
Teased the monster who started up tree...
Slipped noose around his neck and spent several
rounds/turns slamming my feet against his back...
No weapons capable of harming him,
after a number of successful agility rolls,
managed to wrap the rope around him and the tree...
Waited till sun came up....
Things are only impossible, till the die lets you prove otherwise... 
In the great dungeon master DGs world a long time ago in a far away land of the late 70s early 80s, an AD&D group of 7 players roughly 6th to 8th lvls, found themselves passing through a large stinking swamp and noticed two trolls (the group members decide to attack).
Two of the group members, the stealthy pointy eared one and the small hairy footed one, set about to jump out at the trolls from behind. The cleric and magic user got spell components and symbols at the ready, and the fighters charged in....
suddenly the group become aware they have been surprised by nine trolls in their Lair as each character was torn to pieces and devoured by the trolls. (every thing went the trolls way).
All the players were fine with the loss of their characters, and a new group got created and went on to play many many more great adventures.
Interesting Norwegian film "Trollhunter",
where basically the same thing happened.....
Though IIRC they only lost one guy.....
D&D - The fun of saying 'but that will miss me?'...
Small group of Adventures..... which pass between 2 12 foot or so tall 'statues' - and the DM announces that as the first two characters go between them a bolt of lightning comes out the middle of the Statues.
6 1/2 Ft or so Elf gets zapped.... and my 4 1/2 ft or so Dwarf (in metal armour) safely walks under it
Party of 8 or so, fighting a Titan...
Party getting beat up badly....
My warrior rolled 4 x 20s in a row....
DM determined Achilles Heel strike...
Every character failed their attempt to dodge,
as the dead titan fell on most of the party...
Just think of how big an encyclopedia of D&D battles could be if someone collected them up from early 80s players....
Headfirst charge into Kuo-Toa city when playing D1-2-3 back in the day. The party reckoned they could handle anything I threw at them. Turns out they were wrong....
One thing in role playing games is that there are no real things to look at, and thus misdirection can be more effective.
Case in point. Trying to smuggle a body (living but unconscious) off a ship (Sailing ship). Walk up on deck and have a chest, throw open the the chest and invite the other players to search it. But also have a carpet over your shoulder and tell them it is very valuable and cannot be exposed to the sea air, gift from your mother, and look at the chest. Do you want to dig through it and see if I am taking more from the ship than I should?
I knew it would not work, but it was the only idea I had at the time.
Problem was, it did work. They were all fixated on the carpet, which I refused to let them examine, until the chest had been lowered into the boat that was going to take me ashore, and even then I resisted. Finally I showed them the carpet and they let me go.
About half way to the beach I tossed the carpet overboard, and left the chest on the beach after recovering the girl I was in the process of kidnapping from under the top layer of material.
The other players, who were really fooled (I still cannot believe it worked to this day) essentially got revenge by requiring me to continue playing that character because the girl was a member of the group who could only keep playing in the circumstance if that character kept playing, and the character was NOT at the time one who was supposed to be real (as opposed to a non-player) character. I had to play him and my regular character (who fortunately had picked up an evil magic sword previously and was thus an evil character).
Likely Games will be going up- http://www.sjgames.com/ill/archive/May_15_2021/Ongoing_Shipping_Woes
This is just a small example of something happening very broadly, across the whole economy. It is likely that prices for almost everything will be going up, WAY up. Expect inflation to explode. This will be a shock to those folks who don't remember the 1970s and 1980s. The era of low inflation/low interest rates is coming to an end, ladies and gentlemen. Plan accordingly.
I wonder how much of the current shipping costs problem is a (hopefully) short-term spillover from the Suez Canal having been shut down for a week in March. At the time there were predictions that the situation could result in a temporary worldwide shortage of shipping containers.