Trashdome - Fury Of Dracula VS Castle Ravenloft

Shellhead wrote:

<standing ovation for Mr Skeletor's post>

*KOWTOW, KOWTOW*

Shellhead wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote:

People have become impatient and unfocused, not stupid.

People have become rude and foolish. Just because a technology is new doesn't mean that people should discard any and all sense of etiquette. Only two of the people that I game with regularly are guilty of this tech distraction problem, and one of them at least has the ability to still multitask reasonably well. The other guy is fine until he gets a phone call, and then he doesn't mind holding up the game for 15-20 minutes until he is finished with the call. I have been tempted to buy one of those illegal Israeli cellphone jammers for use in my home.

I'm more concerned about the fundamental change to their internal clock. This is about a compelling need to multi-task at all times.

S.

Today’s gadgetry are turning people into rude impatient fools so concerned with who is trying to get a hold of them and how many people are following their every move that they forget who is actually taking the time to actually be in the same room as them.

At least when I'm in my own home I can ridicule people constantly checking their gadgets but once outside it's hopeless.

I have an mp3 player for when I walk to work and that's it.

Vote: Fury over People & cheap beer

Never had folks have a lack of focus or gadget distraction with the groups that play at the house.

With my lunchtime group, however, on more than one occasion we've had folks playing some silly iphone app game against each other between their tabletop game turns. Annoying, and thankfully the shine seems to have worn off as I've seen it less.

I have zero interest in CR. so... actually I'd rather play Descent if given the choice. I enjoy Descent even if is too long for what it is, it's still fun. If we want something faster then Heroquest it is, still to this day.

vote: FoD, which I enjoy but don't love the way some on here do.

No one in our group does the text/app thing. As a matter of fact most of the times I'm the only one who even has a cell phone, never mind smart phone, so the worst offense you'll see is me using the iphone to find a pizza parlour for everyone.

They're ok with that.

None of the regulars in our group do much, if any texting, so it's not generally a problem.

We've had a few people do it, though, and there's a simple solution: just stop playing the game or explaining the rules until the asshole puts his phone away.

You don't need to be too confrontational about it, just stop and look at the offender. He'll eventually meet your eye, and then you just ask "Are you done?" If he's a reasonable person, the phone probably won't come out again. If not, don't invite that person back.

No bathroom breaks either. If you couldn't hold it for 4 hours you should have gone before we started.

Mad Dog wrote:

No bathroom breaks either. If you couldn't hold it for 4 hours you should have gone before we started.

In all seriousness, one of my gaming buddies stopped being friends with me over this issue. I was joking in a thread at BGG (back when I used to post in their forums) about the annoying habits of people in my gaming group, I mentioned how this one guy took several bathroom breaks every game session, including at least one long break. I did name him by first name, but really he was the only other guy in that group who was reading forum posts at BGG.

If you view texting as a necessary bodily function, then you've got a real fucking problem.

Castle Ravenloft = 6
wkover
generalpf
hotseatgames
stormseeker75
Jeff White
Msample

Fury Of Dracula = 23
Rliyen
Death and Taxis
NeonPeon
Da Bid Dabid
Ken B.
mjl1783
Josh Look
Mr Skeletor
Bulwyf
KingPut
Merkles
The King in Yellow
dave
mrmarcus
Shellhead
Michael Barnes
ubarose
superflytnt
LordVonTush
scissors
Southernman
Sagrilarus
JonJacob

Ya know, thinking about it a bit, the whole 'even if your character is on the other side of the map, you can contribute to the discussion' is a bullshit argument. It's basically just validating the peanut gallery in any boardgame in a social setting.

I used to know a guy that didn't ever buy BB minis, but would always show up on league nights to watch and provide input when we played. Was he a player? No. I played a Risk 2020 game one time at the D*C where this annoying guy showed up and provided 'tips' to the inexperienced players. Was he a player? No, but a pain in the ass for sure.

If Dracula isolates a player or two then the characters and all their equipment are irrelevant to the encounters being played out on the other side of the map. The character is not a factor. Sure the player can chat it up at the table, but bystanders can do that as well. Hell, I guess CR can support ten players with five hanging out providing 'tactics'....

Castle Ravenloft...full participation, all the time.

Jeff White wrote:

Ya know, thinking about it a bit, the whole 'even if your character is on the other side of the map, you can contribute to the discussion' is a bullshit argument. It's basically just validating the peanut gallery in any boardgame in a social setting.

I used to know a guy that didn't ever buy BB minis, but would always show up on league nights to watch and provide input when we played. Was he a player? No. I played a Risk 2020 game one time at the D*C where this annoying guy showed up and provided 'tips' to the inexperienced players. Was he a player? No, but a pain in the ass for sure.

If Dracula isolates a player or two then the characters and all their equipment are irrelevant to the encounters being played out on the other side of the map. The character is not a factor. Sure the player can chat it up at the table, but bystanders can do that as well. Hell, I guess CR can support ten players with five hanging out providing 'tactics'....

Castle Ravenloft...full participation, all the time.

Really? So if you're playing CR with three players, and one of the characters ends up several tiles away from the others, they can still readily help him out, and vice versa?

Sure. Most characters can move one tile and then attack a monster one tile away - and that's for the fighter. The wizard has an effective range of four tiles (counting movement). I don't see the party splitting up further than that.

On top of that, what that outlier character does will likely affect the party as a whole. Explore a new tile and bring on a new monster and possibly the scenario tile or do not explore a new tile and draw an encounter card which will likely impact the party in some manner.

Not too many choices, but still very involved in the party's progress.

Jeff White wrote:

On top of that, what that outlier character does will likely affect the party as a whole. Explore a new tile and bring on a new monster and possibly the scenario tile or do not explore a new tile and draw an encounter card which will likely impact the party in some manner.

Not too many choices, but still very involved in the party's progress.

That is on their turn. Of course someone is involved on their turn, of course 'involvement' in this game is simply rolling a die or making an utterly mickey mouse choices like the one described above.

Fury of Dracula took scotland yard and improved upon it.
Castle Ravenloft took the worst parts of a bunch of dungeoncrawlers and clumsily shat out a pretty themeless game.

Hate the bullshit unfair overlord cards in Doom? Well say hello to the CR event deck, which will rape your fucking ass with little you can do about it. Don't draw the shit cards if you want to win.

Hate the monster spawning in Descent? CR is nothing BUT monster spawns. Oh look, here is another zombie stubling out of darkness and hitting my retard hero before he has a chance to react. And look, here is another monster that does damage even when it misses, making the game a boring ass hitpoint drain.

Hate the fact you cant keep the same hero between games in descent? CR doesn't even let you upgrade your character ingame. Oh wait, you can find exciting items that increase your chance to hit by a whopping 5% (wow, thats exciting magic!) and there is some taked on 'level 2' which happens randomly and when it does you hardly notice.

Hate the tactical nature of Doom and Descent when it comes to moving squares? CR ups the antie with a rediculous 'tiles vs squares mechanic, bringing movement to its most 'gamey' level yet found in a board game. Feel the theme as you line up moster right next to you on tile edges yet they can't fucking hit you - my favourite is the wraith whose death whail my hero can't hear from the adjacent square; there must be a sound barrier between tiles or something. Slap your knee in joy as a zombie actually outruns your hero. Its like a eurogame optimisation engine for 3 year olds.

Hate how Descent with all it's variety of abilities and powers brings up combinations that cause rule disputes? Well CR does 1 better by putting together the most lazy and sloppy rulebook of all time so you can have rule disputes over the core gameplay. I swaer they spend more time slecting the clip art to stick in the book then writing the text.

Hate being the dungeonmaster because you don't get to play the game? Forget it, CR automates things to such an amazing degree that now none of you get to play! Don't tell me players are "very involved in the party's progress" - the card draws and die roll is involved in the party progress and will determine how they go. The chumps at the table are just observers as it plays out.

Fury of Dracula is what you should be playing at helloween. Save Ravenloft for thankgiving, which is the season for turkeys.