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× WELCOME TO TRASHDOME!

This is part of a series of bloody matches to the death. Show support for your favorite game so it will do better in the fight. You can support it by writing why you think its the better game and more importantly by betting (i.e. voting for) it. Please make it clear for when I check the bets later. You have until Friday when I tally the bets and declare the winner. I will reserve my bet for any tie-breakers.

Although you should be familiar with both games, there is no rule that says you have to have played both of them. The only rule in Trashdome is this;

Two games enter! One game leaves!

Trashdome - Arkham Horror VS Tales Arabian Nights

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20 Dec 2009 01:25 #50843 by beuks33
I totally see Uba's quandary even though I haven't ever played ToTAN. Both games attempt to elevate the adventure game genre out of the Eastern European D&D mythological cycle. BUT as I own only one of these games and have also been ramming Cthulu references down all my friends throats ever since I started reading Lovecraft, the likelihood of me ever getting anyone to play ToTAN is pretty slim.

Vote: Arkham Horror

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20 Dec 2009 01:33 #50844 by metalface13
ubarose wrote:

To illustrate, pretend you are playing Tales of the Brothers Grimm.


Hey, that's not a bad idea.

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20 Dec 2009 01:41 #50845 by SleightOfHand12
metalface13 wrote:

ubarose wrote:

To illustrate, pretend you are playing Tales of the Brothers Grimm.


Hey, that's not a bad idea.


Boyohboy, a TotAN-inspired boardgame interpretation of Grimm would be ten kinds of awesome.

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20 Dec 2009 10:12 #50853 by mjl1783
The decisions will appear to hardly matter if you are making uninformed choices. The narrative in Tales of the Arabian Nights is pulled directly from the literary work. If you have read the stories, they make sense, and Tales will be a far less random, chaotic game than Arkham Horror.

Sorry, Uba, but they don't matter. I've read 1,001 Nights, I've played the game a lot, and it's always been with people who haven't. On average, I do no better or worse than they do, even when I can recognize some of the stories in the game.

To illustrate, pretend you are playing Tales of the Brothers Grimm. You encounter an old woman who offers you an apple. You have read Snow White. You know that this apple is poisoned. Your choice is going to depend upon your character and your skills. If you are female, have appearance and courtly graces, then eating the apple is a good bet. You will be poisoned, but a Prince will find you, revive you and marry you. Since you are fulfilling the destiny of a character from one of the major stories, you will also probably get a pile of destiny point. However, if you are male, or don't have appearance, then eating that apple is a bad choice. You could examine the apple, but you know that it has been magically enchanted, so if you don't have magic, you probably won't be able to detect the poison. Maybe you should just beat the old woman, but you know she is a witch and a Queen, so maybe that might not be such a good idea.

Great. Here's the problem: No matter what I choose to do, I'm going to be closer to winning at the end of the encounter then I was at the beginning.

Yeah, maybe I decide to beat the old lady and she turns me into a toad. So what? I'm still going to get a bunch of story points, maybe even some destiny points as well. I can just run around having encounters until my toad status finally drops off, at which point I'll probably have all my points and be able to go back to Baghhad.

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20 Dec 2009 10:43 #50854 by maka
I enjoy Tales (have a translated german version) and it's a shame the newer game doesn't include the merchant variant. It at least gave a sense to all the wandering around the map, and you still had encounters just as everyone else. The trading matrix was more like an optimization mini-game where you basically decided where were you going to sell to maximize profit. Not terribly exciting, but it added some meaningful decisions to the game...

Anyway, I haven't read many stories from 1001 Nights, and to me encounters, while fun, seemed pretty random. The decisions didn't seem to connect with the results, but we still had fun. I like the game, but I think AH is more focused. Encounters are as random, but your decisions affect the game in visible ways. You can decide to fight the monsters and they leave the board, you can decide to close/seal gates and they get sealed, etc... the result is what you expect from your action. And even though it is very random, the experience is a little bit more coherent...

Vote: AH

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20 Dec 2009 10:48 #50855 by dysjunct
Urf. I love both these games.

Vote: Rejoice in their shared victory.

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20 Dec 2009 11:15 #50857 by MattFantastic

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20 Dec 2009 11:23 #50858 by mads b.
I'd love to play TotAN, but I can hardly see it comparing to the awesomeness that is Arkham Horror. Yes, it's very much a game about tactics rather than strategy (unless you specifically work at sealing the very unstable locations, beef up for the big fight rather than seal etc. - things I rarely do because it feels gamey), yes it's overly random and can overstay it's welcome. But the narrative is great, the ambience it generates is wonderfully pulp, and I for one find it incredible how much story and atmosphere they've managed to cram into the encounter cards.

Vote: Arkham Horror

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20 Dec 2009 13:35 #50864 by Aarontu
Vote: Arkham

I like the theme a lot more.
You get to save the world by sucker-punching Cthulhu with a knuckle duster.
There's not enough awesome AT co-op games out there.

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20 Dec 2009 16:31 #50877 by dragonstout
Shellhead wrote:

Tales of the Arabian Nights:
Pros: Strong narrative, beautiful board, great theme.
Cons: Extremely random, multi-player solitaire with almost zero strategy, limited replay.


"Limited replay"? TOTAN has "limited replay"? Have you tried to pick up that book?

And I do NOT want to hear anyone else parrot this "multiplayer solitaire" BULLSHIT about Tales of the Arabian Nights. Race for the Galaxy and Princes of Florence are multiplayer solitaire, DESPITE the fact that your in-game actions really are affected by what other people's in-game actions are. They're multiplayer solitaire because what they SAY doesn't matter, it's only what they do in-game that matters. Tales of the Arabian Nights, on the other hand: sure, what your player piece does on the board doesn't affect what your opponent's player piece is going to do on the board.

Thankfully, however: I play this game with human beings. And there is TONS of human-to-human interaction in this game, instead of game-piece-to-game-piece interaction. Every single one of your turns a friend of yours is reading stories aloud to you, possibly embellishing them to connect them better (not usually too hard) to the things that have happened to you earlier in the game, adding their own personal stamp even if just through the way they read.

In this trash dome, Arkham Horror is completely immune to criticism about strategy, because it still has tons more strategy than Arabian Nights, which is basically a narrative randomfest. Take that, you silly bastards.[\quote]

I'll admit that Arkham Horror has more strategy than Arabian Nights. But if you want a game with a lot of strategy, then you can do better with most Eurogames, and in fact with most games in general. The strategy in Arkham Horror comes at a cost of a lot more work and a lot of distraction from what it does best, which is to spin fun stories. And Tales of the Arabian Nights does that better.

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20 Dec 2009 16:57 #50881 by Mr Skeletor
dragonstout wrote:

Thankfully, however: I play this game with human beings. And there is TONS of human-to-human interaction in this game, instead of game-piece-to-game-piece interaction. Every single one of your turns a friend of yours is reading stories aloud to you, possibly embellishing them to connect them better (not usually too hard) to the things that have happened to you earlier in the game, adding their own personal stamp even if just through the way they read.


Ok, I now have no desire to try Tales anymore.

I'll admit that Arkham Horror has more strategy than Arabian Nights. But if you want a game with a lot of strategy, then you can do better with most Eurogames,


Your opinion can no longer be trusted.

VOTE: ARKHAM (despite the fact im sick of trashdomes invoving it.)

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21 Dec 2009 08:53 #50922 by maka
""Limited replay"? TOTAN has "limited replay"? Have you tried to pick up that book?"

I haven't played ToAN more than a handful of times, but I've gotten paragraphs I had already read before. The thing is there are only so many paragraphs for each type of creature you encounter, so getting exactly the same creature twice is not that rare...

At least in the old german version of the game...

In AH you get the same encounters but it doesn't matter because the game is much more than the card encounters. It has its own board dynamic that will be different from game to game. But in ToAN encounters are everything, so replayability is more limited... just like in a "Choose your own adventure" book...

An example of a paragraph game that I think accomplishes more with less paragraphs is Voyage of the BSM Pandora. It's has a very clever system and integrates the paragraphs with the rule mechanics better, not needing so many unique paragraphs. It's still very random, but to me feels more replayable

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21 Dec 2009 10:33 #50941 by san il defanso
I think I'm going to have to go with Tales of the Arabian Nights.

Arkham Horror is a great game. It's got a lot more strategy, and the theme is quite strong. But the best part about it is the story element. I've played the game once, and I don't remember the individual mechanical strategies that happened. I remember the guy who met me at the train station, and assumed I was his guide. I remember being blessed for a few turns until I lost it. That's the kind of stuff that made it fun, not the strategy.

I would submit that TotAN does has the exact same quality, with a lot less overhead. For a group of people who are so adverse to micro-management in Eurogames, this site doesn't have much problem with massive Fantasy Flight games that require us to roll for this, discard that, update those, and advance some counters every round.

I also like the theme a lot more in TotAN. I think it is brought forth stronger in the game, and the fact is, it's just easier to get to the table. I can play TotAN with ANYbody. Both games are terrific, but I prefer Tales of the Arabian Nights.

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21 Dec 2009 10:40 #50943 by mrmarcus
Arkham Horror

I never cared for the "Arabian Nights" setting.

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21 Dec 2009 10:46 #50945 by Ken B.
VOTE: Arkham Horror



Just not into LARPing, lol.

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