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How to divide hobby games into broad categories?
- Matt Thrower
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- Shiny Balls
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The purpose of this project is to introduce new gamers or gamers who are dedicate to one niche of the hobby (e.g. people who've played, say, Warhammer and nothing else) to the wider world of games. So we need to be able to talk about a game and give it some history and context with other games in the same "section".
Some ideas that I've had and rejected are: by decade (too dry and academic), by mechanic (too board-game centric), by "type" as in role-playing, wargame, card game etc (too artificial).
Currently I'm left with two ideas. The first is to break them up by weight (casual, medium, heavy, simulation). This has the advantage of being marginally more scientific than other approaches but giving games a sort of "approachability" rating is going to be a part of this project, so it's kind of replicating information that's already there. The second is to do it my theme (fantasy & horror, superhero & sci-fi, historical etc) but that leaves a problem with abstracts and semi-abstract real-world euros like, well, all the popular euros.
What do you guys think? Any other ideas?
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- Black Barney
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- hotseatgames
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I think the combination is important, because there's a wide gulf between Last Night on Earth and a zombie miniatures game that uses tape measures.
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When introducing people who are on the outskirts of games but play one heavily - say Magic or Warhammer, the easiest way is to just ask what draws them to it. Someone who plays Magic may love deck building, so it is easier to get them into something like Ascension or Dominion, than Puerto Rico or Scythe. My Warhammer group mostly played it because it was the only option. We enjoyed the strategic decisions more than the army building, so when were introduced to Memoir 44, most sold off their Warhammer armies. RPGs are a different animal though.
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A game like Pax Porfiriana would be kinda heavy, tableau building, and setting tightly integrated.
Warhammer Diskwars would be kinda light, miniatures (on discs), and setting well integrated.
Codenames would be light, social word deduction, and minimal theme integration; One Night Werewolf is light, social role/team deduction, and mediumly integrated setting.
Actually now that I've typed it out I think about it there's still something lacking there but it seems like there might be seed of a good idea.
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- SuperflyPete
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If that becomes too difficult, I'd use blended categories like...
Complex Narratives
Narrative Middleweights
Narrative Casual
Abstract Middleweights
...and so on. Blending style and complexity would be a good starting point as long as you define what each main category is and how it translates to the experience.
Good luck, will enjoy reading it.
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Top Shelf: Games I Like
Middle Shelf : Games that I used to Like, but keep because noobies love them
Bottom Shelf : Games that I loathe, because who doesn't have a copy of /apples to apples/pictionary/taboo/quelf/etc. I F#$#ing loathe parlor games. And when it's my wife's night to pick games....because we are going to be playing a parlor game.
And that's usually how I introduce someone to gaming - If they pick something from the bottom shelf we can never be friends. Ever.
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boothwah wrote: I have my shelf categorized as such :
Top Shelf: Games I Like
Middle Shelf : Games that I used to Like, but keep because noobies love them
Bottom Shelf : Games that I loathe, because who doesn't have a copy of /apples to apples/pictionary/taboo/quelf/etc. I F#$#ing loathe parlor games. And when it's my wife's night to pick games....because we are going to be playing a parlor game.
And that's usually how I introduce someone to gaming - If they pick something from the bottom shelf we can never be friends. Ever.
With matching liquor cabinet I hope. "Tonight we're playing Apples to Apples and drinking swill!"
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Checkers -> lightweight
Chess -> middleweight
Monopoly -> heavyweight
Weight is not strategic depth, Weight is rules complexity!
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I know if I had to teach a class to my relatives, I'd drag them though a quick glossary lesson, so we could go faster later.
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- Black Barney
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You are OUTTA HERE!!!
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That said, if it were me, I'd have two axes: rules complexity and rules strictness.
Rules complexity is how easy or hard it is to internalize the rules. So the checkers - chess - monopoly thing works here.
Rules strictness is how much room for interpretation there is. Chess is extremely strict. Fiasco is extremely lenient.
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The idea of a cooperative game like Pandemic is quite novel to some people, and there's a big difference between M:tG and Race for the Galaxy, unless what you came for is complex card interactions.
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