What TOADS are you SHELVING?

I cull pretty ruthlessly, so anything on my shelf I expect to play. Obviously everything has been a toad for the last year but it is what it is. My main unplayed culprits are aspirational wargames that I bought. Unconditional Surrender, DDay at Omaha Beach, Fields of Fire... I don't mind owning some of these to poke at when I'm feeling fancy.

I culled a lot recently, but I've still got some toads. I'll put a * next to any I'm willing to let go.

Duel of Ages II + Master set - this is probably not going anywhere
* Descent 1st edition + all but Sea of Blood - PM me, I'll let this one go
* Captain Sonar - just can't get the right group together
Stronghold 2nd edition - such a cool game, but hard to get to the table
Warhammer Fantasy Disk Wars - I have the whole set, and it is so small, it's easy to keep
Zpocalypse 2 - some day I'll do the campaign. Some day.
Techno Bowl - haven't played in a long time, but it's still great
51st State - haven't been in the mood for something like this
* The Thing - the Mondo game. It's a bit broken, and worth a LOT
* Cry Havoc - it's good, but just never hits the table over other things in the genre
* Chronicles of Crime - when we play something like this, we prefer Sherlock Holmes. I like the analog research.

Kmann wrote: The greatest betrayal and rage quit I have ever seen in gaming was during a game of Blood Feud in New York.

In the opening of the game two neighbours divided by a bridge made a truce. One with grand plans to take over the city moved all his guys - and I mean all of them - to his other front to begin a territory land grab. As soon as his turn finished his new ally immediately crossed the bridge and just rampaged through the undefended territory.

It was an audacious and ruthless - and quite glorious - backstab. And hugely funny. Only the dude who was betrayed was not laughing. Oh no. He just absolutely lost it - especially because the truce-breaker had the biggest, cheesiest grin on his face as he moved his gangsters over the bridge to invade.

Even now I still laugh about it. The ally had a well-earned reputation for being of a man of dubious honour in the group. But this guy was cussing him out, stomping around, storming out of the room, storming back in to cuss him out some more, just pure rage.

It got awkward pretty quick and I thought he might actually knock him out at one point.

Making things worse was that we'd only just started the game and we were playing at his house. The dude eventually stormed out and simmered down and spent the afternoon angrily shooting up things in Grand Theft Auto while the rest of us kept playing in the other room.

And it's for that reason Blood Feud in New York is a toad on my shelf.

That's a Diplomacy maneuver and a 1/2. That's really funny and awkward at the same time.

I’m not going to lie. Those kind of extreme reactions during games are hilarious to me. My friends and I laughingly reminisce about them for decades.

Rliyen wrote: That's a Diplomacy maneuver and a 1/2. That's really funny and awkward at the same time.

Hilarious.

If you think about it, the point of a truce is to minimize the threat of your opponent's forces. However, if the opponent has no forces, the other player is getting no benefit from said truce, so why not ignore it?

Disgustipater wrote:

Rliyen wrote: That's a Diplomacy maneuver and a 1/2. That's really funny and awkward at the same time.

Hilarious.

If you think about it, the point of a truce is to minimize the threat of your opponent's forces. However, if the opponent has no forces, the other player is getting no benefit from said truce, so why not ignore it?

Absolutely. There is a difference between a truce and an alliance. It seems in this case that one player mistakenly thought it was the latter!

Kmann wrote: And it's for that reason Blood Feud in New York is a toad on my shelf.

And now I absolutely need to get Blood Feud played some time.

I get why people think the extreme reactions are funny, but it is a HUGE turnoff for me. I'm a really non-confrontational person in real life, so people getting Actually Mad at the table really breaks the bubble of safety and immediately makes me play differently. I kind of hate it, though I recognize it can also be perceived as a problem with me so ymmv.

Hard agree @gary. I can understand getting salty or annoyed, but if you take things beyond that I'm not playing games with you. It's super awkward at best.

I guess there's a reason Diplomacy has the rep of busting up friendships and marriages.

Ah_Pook wrote: Hard agree @gary. I can understand getting salty or annoyed, but if you take things beyond that I'm not playing games with you. It's super awkward at best.

While I agree that taking saltyness to genuine anger (or threats of violence) is a bridge too far but some of my most memorable gaming moments involve people losing their shit at the table and walking towards that edge. I guess I've been fortunate that all the stories I remember follow the same arc: the blow up happens, an embarrassed apology is issued (sometimes not on the same night...) and we all move on and gently rib the person at opportune moments. I would not tolerate that nonsense from an acquaintance but amongst friends those sort of events serve as good bonding moments and form memorable parts of our shared history.

RobertB wrote: I guess there's a reason Diplomacy has the rep of busting up friendships and marriages.

There's even a t-shirt for it

DIPLOMACY
Destroying friendships since 1959

mezike wrote:

Disgustipater wrote:

Rliyen wrote: That's a Diplomacy maneuver and a 1/2. That's really funny and awkward at the same time.

Hilarious.

If you think about it, the point of a truce is to minimize the threat of your opponent's forces. However, if the opponent has no forces, the other player is getting no benefit from said truce, so why not ignore it?

Absolutely. There is a difference between a truce and an alliance. It seems in this case that one player mistakenly thought it was the latter!

I think my favorite one was when I was playing Supremacy with my friend Troy while in college. We were at my house playing in the kitchen, and there was a James Bond marathon going on on the TV in the next room. My friend was playing Europe and I was the United States. He had invested heavily in taking over Northern Africa and winnowed down some of his supporting forces in his home territories. I calmly built up my forces and waited for him to winnow them more and move them to Africa.

That's when I struck. Humming the "You Only Live Twice" song, I performed an airborne assault on his home territories. I think he failed to realize that just because I'm not next to you, doesn't mean I can't hurt you. I took some heavy losses, but the result was glorious. He lost several home countries, and with that, their resources. That had a cascading effect on his army as he could not maintain them with the financial and resource losses.

He wasn't even mad, he just had this, "Oh, shit. What just happened?" look on his face. He conceded the game, knowing that he didn't have enough in reserve to have a decent comeback. He smiled and then told me, "I was totally not expecting that." and congratulated me for outmaneuvering him.

Rliyen wrote:

RobertB wrote: I guess there's a reason Diplomacy has the rep of busting up friendships and marriages.

There's even a t-shirt for it

DIPLOMACY
Destroying friendships since 1959

Based on my two plays, it should have a picture of Turkey knifing Austria-Hungary in the back.