Reviews written by Gary Sax

Regardless of how you feel about D+D as a system, this box is a great way to give a kid or adult who doesn't know RPGs a complete thing for a low price.

The truth is that the valuable thing in these expansions is the scenarios. Everything else is just giving you more blocks, which are usually pretty similar to your existing base ones in these early expansions.

I think the best way to describe this game is off-equilibrium. The game does not have or settle into a steady state besides the opening. The game starts from nothing with both players developing engines... which sounds familiar. The thing is that the engines quickily become wildly powerful, the game falls off the rails and you win. And that's the whole game, there's no comfortable middle game with both players happily humming along on their well balanced engines as the game watches.

Very creative. I wish I had played this more to really nail down opinions better.

Pax Porfiriana might not be my favorite Pax game, but it is perhaps the most pure, cutthroat one. The core feature of the Pax series is players fighting each other while simultaneously tilting the game state from chaos, to order and back again to their advantage. Porfiriana is the Pax game that has the sharpest knives---players can easily lose almost their entire tableau to other players and/or to game state changes. Compared to Pax Renaissance, you will gain and lose far more cards (easy come, easy go) in an average game.

The first time you pursue a red (revolutionaries) strategy while simultaneously plunging the board into recession---which bankrupts all the other players with their shiny, expensive toys, banks, and productive investments--- you'll know the true joys of Pax Porfiriana.

Shadow Hunters leaves me very cold. It's a social deduction game that is so light, with relatively little information gleaned through play, as to be relatively random.

It's incredibly complex, the rules are poor and the chrome exceptions are at times completely mind boggling. Strategies are at the start very opaque as well, making for more frustration. Where am I supposed to attack? What should I be realistically doing?

If you can get past that, it's a very replayable, incredibly thematic game. If you can invest the time and frustration into it, it will be returned to you in spades in enjoyment.

This game is far more playable than it first seems. The big impediment is the procedure. Once you have a grasp on the procedure the rest of the game is far less complex with few exceptions. It is a well designed, and dare I say it for a long GMT CDG, tightly designed, wargame. Tough choices abound but they are rarely the false, unthematic choices you have to make in a game like Paths of Glory.

A groundbreaking game. But I prefer diplomatic games with more structure to the negotiation. Negotiation in Diplomacy is always, necessarily, on one dimension--army movements. I prefer other negotiation games where there are multiple mechanics/dimensions to bargain over.

I also feel that the stalemate points really are a big game mechanic flaw.

I don't play this much anymore, I feel it has been superseded. Still a classic game.

Much like Axis and Allies, this is one of those classic games I'd prefer not to play much again. I don't enjoy the design at this point, I feel like the game has a strange flow w/the cards until a sudden overwhelming wave wipes most opponents off the board. I don't get a satisfying a sense of buildup, defense and borders.

I'd still play it if someone really wanted to, it just wouldn't be my first choice. Luckily it can be a little shorter than something like Monopoly or A+A.

I deeply and profoundly dislike this game. But it was one of my introductions to more complex games and wargames particularly. I won't be playing it again and will actively turn down games of it. I imagine how many wargamers it has nipped in the bud with its ponderous, rich-get-richer, over-in-two-turns but sitting for 8 more hours, nature and it hurts my heart.