Which second-tier games do you keep and why?

Not all the games we own are the greatest. Some of them are good, some of them are okay and some are simply...not the best in their category. That is, they are second-tier games, games that are good but clearly a step below our favourites and greats.

Which games do you keep in this category and why? What do you like about them?

--


Interestingly, I don't think I'm keeping any at this point. I own Automobile, which was a cool game that always played second fiddle to Steam. That is, I would never play the former if I could play the latter. But, unlike, Steam it was a great game to drop on casual players, which carved it a niche: A heavy economic game that you could play with anyone. Had it more replayability, I would keep it.

I keep Black Fleet instead of Merchants & Marauders because of the quicker play time. The resution is leagues faster, and it is a good distillation of M&M feel with what I feel to be the chaff removed and allow me to grin more while I play it.

People love to rave about Tsuro, yet I find Indigo Knizia's vision of the path design, and Ravensburger implementation of the idea, to be vastly superior to Tsuro.

Rattlesnake is a kids game produced by Nexus, yet it's a lot of magnetic, dexterity fun. And a fabulous drinking game, if one is inclined.

Production quality and the setting it takes place in seems to play a fairly major role in my retention of games that don't meet my otherwise high bar.

But mostly, if I can have the kind of true, laugh out loud fun I had when I was a kid because of it, then it doesn't matter how good or shitty the design is. They form a category all their own and remain within easy reach.
They are truly priceless at that point.

I prefer the Carcassonne knock off, This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2-4 of Us.
It's faster and lighter. I also prefer the the Wild West more than the French Countryside.

My second side is bigger than my first side by a large margin.

Mission Command Sea
Alhambra The Dice Game
Martian Dice
Zombie Dice
Desolate
Roll for It (tbf: I hate this)
Rolling Bones
Octo Dice
Five Fingered Severance
Trick or Treat
Citadels
Tiny Epic Everything (Galaxies is top shelf)
Beasty Bar
Super PACs
Hit Z Road
Escape: Curse of the Temple
Battleball
Cluedo
Vegas Showdown


Almost all are on my Forever Shelf

Most of my second tier games got left in the US. There is very little left that I'm not enthusiastic about. There are a couple flawed games I kept because I like them more than they probably deserve. The gf9 Doctor Who game is a good example.

I do have Pack n' Stack, which is a game my wife likes a lot, but I think is pretty mediocre. I enjoy it well enough, but the game basically revolves around a single split-second decision, where you pick a moving truck to fill with little cubes. You need to do it in real time against everyone else. Everything else basically plays itself. But we keep it because my wife likes it.

I still have Fearsome Floors too. It plays a lot of people and looks fun.

Runebound will always have a place at my table. It is a fun roll and move adventuing game. Plus, each expansion makes the game play pretty different.

Exalted:Legacy of an Unconquered Sun is a relative unknown that has a novel movement system. It also provides a challenging balancing act between hunting your rivals or going for missions.

Blood Royale. That will never be traded/sold/given away. Warts and all, it provides a great dynasty game. You do have too keep the negotiation phase within a reasonable time frame.


Warhammer Quest. For pure dice chucking dungeon delving with character advancement, no other game in the genre does it for me. The user created content is quite extensive. I don't care that the monster tactics are elementary.

A culling is coming for my collection. We’ll see what shakes out from that, but I can say now that Kill Dr. Lucky and Deadwood will be sticking around. Both have gotten deluxe not-really-Cheapass-anymore releases, but these are the classic slim white cardboard editions with cards wrapped in slips of magazine pages from my first attempt at getting into gaming in middle school when twenty dollars was many dollars. And James Ernest signed them, so that’s cool.

I still love Runebound.

I think FFG fucked up so, so bad by not making Runebound into Fallout and releasing a million expansions and miniatures to go with it.

Y’all have bought all of my second tier games.

Michael Barnes wrote: Y’all have bought all of my second tier games Game(s) of the Year.

Fixed that up for you.

repoman wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Y’all have bought all of my second tier games Game(s) of the Year.

Fixed that up for you.

Bichael Marnes wrote: Folks, this game is the real deal. I mean, this game will end up on many 'GAME OF THE YEAR' lists, no doubt. This is the kind of editorial design that completely floors me with its clear and concise design. In other words, I've never played it, but the manual and parts look rad. NOW FOR SALE AT BARNES 'S NOBLE's game store RIGHT HERE!

LMAO

Not counting expansions or different editions, I have just over 100 boardgames in my collection. I will reluctantly admit that many of them are second-tier or even third-tier games. But the vast majority of my games are ameritrash or hybrids, so most of my games offer at least the illusion of a story.

I admit that I keep most of my games because I have hoarding tendencies, and I also have a book collection, a music collection, a comic collection, and a CCG collection. But the other main reason why I keep my second-tier and third-tier games is because these games tell stories, and different games tell different stories. I tend to re-read my favorite books each decade, and sometimes I will even re-read books that were not favorites. I re-read the non-favorites because they were still entertaining or interesting, and offer different stories from my favorites that I have already re-read. I don't read as much as I used to, probably only 30-35 books a year now. Probably 75% of the books I read are new to me, and the rest are re-reads.

Boardgames tend to have higher repeat entertainment value than books, and replayability is a quality that I value highly when I am pondering the purchase of a new game. So that replayability is a third reason why I keep my second-tie games. I've played them a number of times in the past, and they are not the best games, but I can easily picture different experiences if I were to play them again.

It occurred to me that I never answered WHY the overwhelming majority of my games are what most would consider 2nd rate.

1. I like them.
2. It’s cheaper to buy games that are niche or were not well received.
3. In a time where virtually every top shelf game is a portmanteau of other games’ mechanics and settings, why not just play games that do ONE thing pretty well and not overburden you with a bunch of complexity for complexity’s sake?
4. If I were to divest myself of them, they have little value and I’d spend more time packing them than they are worth.

Ascension is my 2nd-tier game. We only have the little 2-player Apprentice pack and we play it quite a bit when we just want to have some low-key fun without a lot of setup or thinking.

It's like comfort food.

The fact of the matter is that even “game of the year” titles can be second tier in terms of a collection.

First tier games are the ones that get asked for over and over, and that are evergreen. Cosmic, Settlers, Wiz-War, Survive, Acquire, El Grande, Ra, and so forth. First tier games are also titles that I will more or less never turn down, and will always pick from first. A game that gets played once a year or if playing it is conditional at all- even if it’s one of the best games ever made- is not first tier in my house.

Pete’s #3 point is oh so true...and it speaks to what is wrong with a lot of current “kitchen sink” designs. If you look at Knizia’s best work, or Kramer’s for that matter...those designs are intensely focused on a mechanical or gameplay concept. There are no subsystems, there is nothing bolted on to a lean chassis. The success of games like Azul, Century, and Splendor suggest that there IS still a want/demand for these kinds of games.